Phipps relative dedicated to preservation
A lawyer, military intelligence officer and preservationist, Henry Phipps Hoffstot Jr. made it a mission to save for the ages his family's home on Fifth Avenue's Millionaires' Row.
“He was a quintessential gentleman,” said Richard Piacentini, executive director of Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, the Oakland landmark gifted in 1893 to Pittsburgh by philanthropist Henry W. Phipps, Hoffstot's great uncle.
Mr. Hoffstot of Shadyside died Monday, June 29, 2015. He was 98.
He was a son of the late Henry Phipps Hoffstot and Marguerite Martin. His grandfather, Frank Norton Hoffstot, owned Pressed Steel Car Company, a manufacturer of passenger and freight railroad cars on the Ohio River between Pittsburgh and McKees Rocks.
Henry Hoffstot Sr. in 1929 bought the mansion at 5057 Fifth Ave., now known as the Moreland-Hoffstot House — designed after the Grand Trianon at the Palace of Versailles in France.
Mr. Hoffstot Jr. inherited the house after his father's death in 1967. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
He meticulously restored the house and in 2011 donated a preservation easement on the property to the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, the city's oldest preservation group that his wife helped start in 1964.
Mr. Hoffstot Jr. went to Harvard and joined the Pittsburgh law firm of Reed Smith. Soon after, he was drafted into the Army.
He joined the 44th Infantry Division and entered the Army Specialized Training Program. He learned German and was assigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps.
In 1945, his unit took the surrender of famed German rocket scientist and missile commander Wernher von Braun, who later would become father of the American Saturn V rocket that launched U.S. astronauts to the moon.
Mr. Hoffstot married Barbara Drew, the daughter of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court chief justice and a Pittsburgh steel heiress. They were married for 46 years before she died in 1994.
The couple had two children: daughter Thayer Hoffstot Unterman, 64, of Gordonsville, Va., and son H. Phipps Hoffstot III, 58, of Ligonier.
“He really was a remarkable person,” Hoffstot III said about his father.
A memorial service will be held within a month at Shadyside Presbyterian Church. John A. Freyvogel Sons funeral home is in charge of arrangements for Mr. Hoffstot Jr.
“He had a presence about him,” said Ryan Martin, 47, of Butler, the great-great-grandson of Henry Phipps.
The two met in 2001 after Martin moved to Western Pennsylvania and became a Phipps Conservatory trustee, a position Mr. Hoffstot held since the nonprofit organization took over the property in 1993.
“He took me all around Pittsburgh and showed me stuff,” Martin said. “It was nice to meet someone close in relation who knew that kind of history.”
Mr. Hoffstot Jr. served many nonprofit organizations, including the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh.
A couple of years ago, Reed Smith celebrated his 70th anniversary with the firm.
Mr. Hoffstot continued to arrive at his 10th-floor office until recently, said George Stewart, managing partner of the Pittsburgh office.
“He was a fixture here,” Stewart said. “... Everybody loved Henry.”
Jason Cato is a writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at 412-320-7936 or jcato@tribweb.com.
