Entry No. 60 — the Pittsburgh file — filed under: appointment-only
Troy Hill Art Houses
Four rowhouses on a Troy Hill hillside, each hollowed out and rebuilt as a single artwork you walk through by appointment. Thorsten Brinkmann's La Hütte Royal at 1812 Rialto started it in 2013 and reopened as a reworked 'Version 2.0' in May 2026; Robert Kuśmirowski's Kunzhaus at 1718 Rialto followed in 2016, staged around the Kunz family who lived in the house from 1896 to 1956. At 1913 Tours St., Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis built a full-size working lighthouse rising four stories from the basement floor through the roofline, its rotating beam visible from the street at night. Mark Dion's Mrs. Christopher's House at 1722 Hollinger Way opened in 2024 with a glass-walled diorama of Christmas Eve 1961 on the ground floor, a plush bear locked in a converted bathroom upstairs, and an attic of natural-history specimens you are actually allowed to pick up. All four are free, all are by appointment, and founder Evan Mirapaul deliberately under-promotes them — WESA reported that visitors still show up expecting a haunted house and take it out on the volunteer docents.
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The story
Evan Mirapaul was a collector in Manhattan when he visited Naoshima, the Japanese island where artists are handed entire buildings. He moved to Troy Hill — a plateau above the Allegheny settled by German mill and tannery workers, and steadily emptier since 1940 — and began buying the vacant rowhouses. Thorsten Brinkmann's La Hütte Royal opened at 1812 Rialto St. in 2013; Robert Kuśmirowski's Kunzhaus followed in 2016, Clayton and Lewis's Darkhouse Lighthouse in 2022, Mark Dion's Mrs. Christopher's House in 2024.
Kuśmirowski researched his house before touching it. Built around 1880 as 21 Ravine Street, it was bought in April 1896 for $2,500 by Fredolin Kunz, a Swiss immigrant, and his German wife Katherina, who raised six children there; Fredolin sold it in January 1948 for a dollar. Inside now: a Cold War transceiving room playing the Judica-Cordiglia brothers' recordings, Laika's heartbeat among them; a seismic laboratory assembled from found kitchen appliances; two rooms that mirror each other until the paintings give the trick away; and an attic cabinet of curiosities that openly borrows from the Center for PostNatural History and from Saint Anthony's Chapel, five minutes' walk away.
Down the block at 1913 Tours St., Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis built a full-size working lighthouse from the basement floor up through four stories to a weathervane. You walk it one direction only, out through a garden and back to the street; the artists call it a latent time capsule, 879 feet above sea level and 382 miles from the ocean, waiting to be needed. Dion's house holds a glass-walled diorama of Christmas Eve 1961, a life-size plush bear behind brick, an 'Extinction Club' papered in vanished species, and attic shelves you may handle. All of it is free; La Hütte Royal reopened in a reworked version on May 9, 2026.
What it's like
You book a specific hour, and the hour is the point: tours start on the top of it, run 45 minutes to an hour, and cap at six people, so a late arrival wrecks the next group. A volunteer docent meets you at the door, sizes up the staircases and gives you an honest read on what you can manage, then largely gets out of the way — the houses are meant to be walked, not narrated. Phones stay in pockets; photography and video are prohibited in all four. The site's own framing is that you are an honored guest in a private home, which is roughly the register to hold: don't wander off, do touch only what you're told you can, and leave a tip for the docent. Come back after dark and stand on Tours St. to watch the lighthouse beam turn inside somebody's roof.
The move: Tonight, open the Acuity scheduling page and book two consecutive hour slots for the same weekend day — Kunzhaus first, then Darkhouse Lighthouse — since tours start on the hour and the houses are a few hundred feet apart. Park free on Rialto St., use the gap between slots for coffee or dinner at the Troy Hill places the art houses themselves send people to, then hang around until dark and stand on Tours St. to watch the lighthouse beam turn inside somebody's roof.
📍 Before you go Appointment only, booked through the site's Acuity scheduling link; admission is free and slots skew to weekends. Tours begin on the hour — budget 45 minutes to an hour per house and book consecutive slots if you want more than one. No photography or video inside any house. Children under 15 are not admitted. Each house takes a maximum of six visitors at a time; larger groups must split. Show up on time — late arrivals and no-shows knock the next appointment off schedule. For anything inside 24 hours, call or text 878.290.2783 and allow up to 48 hours for a reply. Free street parking on Rialto, Tours, or Ley St.; PRT Route 4 stops a two-minute walk away. Streets here are steep — wear real shoes.
- 📍 Pittsburgh
- 💸 $$
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: 1812 Rialto St, Pittsburgh, PA 15212 (La Hütte Royal); also Kunzhaus at 1718 Rialto St, Darkhouse Lighthouse at 1913 Tours St, and Mrs. Christopher's House at 1722 Hollinger Way
Hours: Added 2026-08-26 — confirm current hours before you go.
⚠ Seasonal or scheduled — always check before you go.
Pair it with
- Saint Anthony's Chapel — Five minutes' walk from the houses, and Kuśmirowski cites its 5,000 relics as a direct source for the Kunzhaus attic — see the reference and then the original.
- Center for PostNatural History — The other collection the Kunzhaus attic borrows from, a storefront museum of human-altered organisms about fifteen minutes away on Penn Ave.
- Photo Antiquities Museum of Photographic History — Down the hill in Deutschtown, another second-floor obsession kept alive by the person who assembled it — 3,000 cameras instead of four houses.
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Good to know
What does it cost, and how do I get in?
Admission is free. Everything runs by appointment through the Acuity scheduling link on troyhillarthouses.com, with slots weighted toward weekends. For anything inside 24 hours, call or text 878.290.2783 and allow up to 48 hours for a reply. Gratuities for the docents are appreciated.
Can I do more than one house in a day?
Yes, and it's the sensible move. The houses sit a few hundred feet apart on Rialto and Tours, so book consecutive hourly slots. If you want a gap, the art houses themselves point visitors at de Fer Coffee & Tea in the neighborhood.
How accessible are they?
Not very. These are 19th-century rowhouses with multiple staircases and some genuinely tight passages; the docent gives you an overview before the tour starts so you can bail. Neither pets nor service animals are permitted inside, and children under 15 are not admitted.
Can I take photos?
No. Photography and video are prohibited in every house, for the installations' integrity and the neighbors' privacy. Plan on remembering it instead.
Where do I park?
Street parking is free and generally available on Rialto St., Tours St., or Ley St. PRT Route 4 stops a two-minute walk away. Troy Hill is a hillside neighborhood and Rialto in particular is famously steep — wear shoes you can climb in.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Official site · wesanews.org · artbasel.com
last checked: 2026-08-26