Former company town Reduction, Pa., listed for $1.5M

The former company town of Reduction might carry in its name the seeds of its own demise.

Once home to employees of the American Reduction Co. plant on the Youghiogheny River, the South Huntingdon “town” is up for sale by the family that has owned it for nearly 70 years.

David Stawovy's father, John, bought the 75-acre property in 1948 for $10,000. Today's asking price of $1.5 million includes farmland, 19 single-family dwellings and a 1914 one-room schoolhouse that is being used as a duplex.

A small collection of rental homes at the end of Reduction Road sits on a hill overlooking the Yough River, where American Reduction once operated a plant that processed, or reduced, tons of garbage a day from Pittsburgh.

Before it opened its own facility in 1936, the city paid American Reduction to accept its garbage by rail. Everything from tin cans to animal carcasses was processed under high heat and turned into products such as soap and fertilizer.

On an idyllic plot of adjacent land, David Stawovy's father and grandfather operated Valentine's Dairy Farms. When John Stawovy (pronounced sta-VO-vee) expressed interest in one of the American Reduction homes, a company official asked him, “Why don't you just buy them all?”

Nearly 70 years after that purchase, the family believes it is time to divest itself of the property that newspaper headlines once called “the town that garbage built,” David Stawovy said.

The retired teacher said his children aren't interested in the property and his family can't afford to continue to maintain it.

“I've done it all my life,” he said. “I've got to be the mayor, the fire marshal and the dog catcher.”

As executor of his parents' estate, Stawovy said he wants to sell the property as one unit and divide the proceeds evenly among the four siblings. John Stawovy died in 2014. His wife, Amelia, died in 2016.

The property, known as Amelia R. Stawovy Estates, was once home to an estimated 400 American Reduction employees. Some of the 28 houses were razed. What remains is an odd assortment of single-family homes, utility buildings and yellow tile cottages.

While the latter are neatly arrayed in a row along Reduction Circle, several larger dwellings occupy an area that Stawovy jokingly calls Reduction Heights. The showcase, located at 375 Reduction Road, is an A-frame that John Stawovy built for his family in the 1970s.

David Stawovy, 67, of Scottdale grew up in Reduction at a time when the neighborhood children could fill half a school bus. “I enjoyed it. The kids would play baseball in the cow field,” he said.

Stawovy lived in the superintendent's house and worked for the family farm until he was drafted in 1969.

Today, about 60 people live in Reduction, including Andrew Knopsnider, who had Stawovy as a shop teacher in the seventh grade.

“I'd like to stay,” Knopsnider said. “It's nice and quiet and peaceful.”

Knopsnider's cottage, where he has lived for more than two years, has three small bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and a bathroom in the basement. He said the oil heat keeps the place cozy in the winter.

Stawovy said he will insist that tenants be given up to a year to move once the sale is completed.

“We have no idea what the next person's going to do with it,” he said.

None of the residents has moved since the town was listed with Howard Hanna in October, he said. Real estate agent Deborah Dattalo said it's one of the more unusual listings she's handled.

“Everybody I talk to says, ‘Oh, my gosh. What a great property,' ” she said. “I think it's going to take the right buyer with the right vision for what can be done with it.”

Although there have been no serious inquiries yet, Dattalo said the property may be appropriate for commercial development.

“That area (near Smithton) has been getting publicity because of other things moving into the area,” she said.

Nearby is the Westmoreland I-70 Industrial Park, the Levin Furniture corporate offices, a Dick's Sporting Goods distribution center and Westmoreland County Community College's Public Safety Training Center.

Since the listing became public, Stawovy has been busy fielding calls from the news media, including the producers of the Fox Business show “Strange Inheritance.” He said the Reduction sale may be featured in an episode this spring.

Stephen Huba is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-850-1280 or shuba@tribweb.com.