Clayton

The home of the Henry Clay Frick family from 1882–1905, this meticulously restored 23-room mansion reveals the lifestyle of a prominent, wealthy family who lived in Pittsburgh at the height of the city’s cultural and economic importance. Today, Clayton is the last remaining home of its kind in Pittsburgh, standing as a testament to another era and offering unique insights into our city’s past.

The Frick family—Henry Clay Frick, Adelaide Howard Childs Frick, and their children, Childs Frick, Martha Howard Frick, Helen Clay Frick, and Henry Clay Frick, Jr.—lived in Clayton during the Gilded Age, the forty-year period following the end of the American Civil War, which witnessed rapid, intense change and ushered in the modern era of the United States. Forces such as industrialization, urbanization, technological advances and immigration collided to fundamentally alter the American way of life—creating great wealth and progress, but also challenges and startling inequity that continue to impact our world today.

Guided tours of Clayton explore this pivotal time in our nation’s history through the experiences of the Frick family and other 19th-century Pittsburghers, examining what it was like to live in this city at the dawn of modern America.

All Clayton tours begin at Grable Visitor Center. Advance reservations are strongly recommended. Read current Covid-19 guidelines here.

Photography is not permitted in Clayton.

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A triumph of restoration

“Clayton is a triumph of restoration,” wrote Susan Mary Alsop in Architectural Digest. It is also a triumph of preservation.

When the Frick family moved to New York in 1905, after living at Clayton for 22 years, they left much of their Pittsburgh life behind. An astonishing 93% of the artifacts in the house are original, making Clayton a home more than a house, and an eloquent evocation of the lives of the family who lived there. Clayton has welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors since it was opened to the public in 1990 after a six-year restoration.

Henry Clay Frick and his wife, Adelaide Howard Childs, purchased Clayton in August 1882 for $25,000. At the time, the house was considerably smaller, an 11-room, Italianate-style building on a 1.43-acre parcel of land.

The home, which fronted Penn Avenue in the residential neighborhood of Point Breeze, was located just a half-hour by train from Mr. Frick’s downtown office. The couple moved into Clayton early in 1883, and soon had the first of their four children.

Clayton is unmistakably a family home. A high chair sits in the breakfast room, children’s toys and books are in the nursery and library, and a sink and clothes rack built to a child’s scale are nestled in an alcove outside the kitchen.

By 1891, the family and the Fricks’ social stature both had outgrown the home as it was, and architect Frederick J. Osterling was hired to transform Clayton into the 23-room chateau-style mansion seen today.

Preserving Clayton for Future Generations

Clayton Conservation Project

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Clayton

Clayton

Clayton Dining Room

Clayton Parlor

Clayton Kitchen

Annunciator in the kitchen at Clayton

Table setting in the Breakfast Room at Clayton

Clayton Library

Clayton Library

A triumph of restoration

“Clayton is a triumph of restoration,” wrote Susan Mary Alsop in Architectural Digest. It is also a triumph of preservation.

Clayton Conservation Project