New 'Mt. Mansion' owner excited about Pittsburgh's Mt. Washington
On a frigid January morning, Chuck Lantzman answered the phone and asked if he could call back later.
“I have to shovel snow,” he said. “It pays the bills.”
On top of the usual flurry of monthly payments he faces, Lantzman had just added a blizzard of a bill: The Bailey Avenue “Mt. Mansion.”
Lantzman closed the sale the first week of January for “about $2 million,” he said.
That might be a bargain. The 10,000-square-foot, uber-view Mt. Washington home blitzed the market with a $4.2 million asking price.
Lantzman owns Snow and Ice Management Co., which provides snow removal services for businesses and commercial properties.
“We cover seven states,” Lantzman said. Locally this season, “There hasn't been a whole lot piling up, but even nuisance amounts of snow is always good. Even an inch or two makes us money.”
After a few good winters of clearing ice and snow for commercial properties, Lantzman spent his slow summer season looking for a long-term investment. He heard about 207 Bailey Ave., just around the bend from Grandview Avenue, and took a drive up to Mt. Washington.
“We looked at it in July,” he said. “I liked the contemporary look of the house, where most people of Pittsburgh prefer a traditional-looking house.”
It was enticing compared to other properties where “they wanted top dollar and the whole house needed rehab,” he said.
Mt. Mansion topped them all: Four big bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a bar with an adjacent dance floor and disc jockey booth, massive wine cellar, gym with sauna and steam room, three levels lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, decks and balconies overlooking the North Shore and Downtown skylines and even a swimming pool with a view.
“It pretty much had everything I would want,” Lantzman said. “You always go into a house thinking, ‘Boy, I wish it had this' or ‘I wish it had this.' But every time I walked in, I thought, ‘This is a well thought-out and put-together house.' It has everything I wanted, everything I needed.”
In August, he made his first offer to Steve Herforth and Peter Karlovich, who built the house in 2004. They reached a deal in November after months of negotiations.
Lantzman will split his time between Pittsburgh and a home in New Jersey.
One can imagine the Bailey behemoth with its decadent touches and dazzling views as a bed and breakfast — but not under Lantzman's watch.
“I hardly cook for myself,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is cook for someone else.”
Tom Scanlon is a Tribune-Review contributing writer.
