Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 31

nomeS ARTS CTI0N ENTERTAINMENT: Adam Sandler is one of many stars at Toronto film fest. SATURDAY PAGE C-6 SEPT. 14 2002 ens CiARDl NINAGLf I HOUSING MARKET page c-5 I TELEVISION page c-9 I COMICS pages ARTIST OF THE YEAR page cm Questions about delivery or service7 Call 1-800-228-NEWS (6397). The oak box staircase in the Richardsonian Romanesque-style home that Jim Lawrence and his wife, Andrea Nichola Fridley, are renovating comes with hand-turned spindles and is the gateway to the house's 3,300 square feet. Martha RialPost-Gazette ii DUST, DEBRIS AND DETERMINATION Solid character of Mexican War Streets houses lured these renovators By Gretchen McKay jr ost people would not call a turn-of-the-century parsonage-turned-boarding house-turned-apartment building the ideal home.

Andrea Andrew Lawson For 14 years, Penelope Hobhouse took care of the National Trust's Tintinhull House gardens in Somerset, England, where daffodils, tulips, primroses and forget-me-nots fill the rose borders. Nichola Fridley and her husband, Jim Lawrence, are not like most people. Fridley, a graphic designer and painter from Hermitage who lived for 10 years in New York City before returning home, is able to picture possibility and greatness where others see only a giant headache of a mess. Visitors will be able to see a little bit of both on tomorrow's Mexican War Streets House Garden Tour, which will feature Fridley and Lawrence's stone townhouse along BR TISH GARDENER CULTIVATED TIES WITH RICH, FAMOUS NEATLY TUCKED AWAY North Side's Foster Square provides a convenient city lifestyle with two dozen other North Side properties. Unlike most of the other stops on the self-guided tour, the couple's home on Buena Vista Street is very much a work in progress.

The house was purchased in the fall of 2000, but the interior renovation began only this spring. Fridley and Lawrence still live in the three-story Victorian that Fridley bought just down the street when she first moved into the neighborhood in 1997. Scaffolding and exposed lathe aside, this is one of the neighborhood's more unusual houses. Built between 1895 and 1900 as a parsonage for what was then the Westminster Presbyterian Mexican War Streets House Garden Tour WHEN: 11 am to 5 p.m. tomorrow.

FEATURES: 20 homes and gardens, as well as six other points of interest. SPONSOR: Nonprofit Mexican War Streets Society. TICKETS: $12 in advance, $1 5 on the day of the tour at the corner of North Avenue and Resaca Place INFORMATION: 412-323-9030 or http:www.mexicanwarstreets.org By Patricia Sheridan Post-Gazette Staff Writer With a body of work that will continue to grow long after she's put down the pen and pruners, Penelope Hobhouse can afford to stop taking new gardening clients. The British gardener, author and lecturer who has hobnobbed with celebrities and royalty, garnered many awards and hosted a show on HGTV is ready to give up high-profile projects such as the late Queen Mother's garden in Kent and fashion designer Jil Sander's garden in Germany to concentrate on her private paradise in Dorset. "I am really retiring from designing because I just want to write books and do my own garden.

I'm 72 and finding the jet lag is quite bad," she said in a telephone interview. She plans to continue lecturing in England and the United States but is cutting back on that, too. "At one point, I was coming nine times a SEE HOBHOUSI, PAGE C-3 By Kevin Kirkland Post-Gazette Homes Editor Peter Geissler, 69, walks everywhere from his home in the North Side to the grocery store, to the library, to the Benedum or Heinz Hall, even to classes at Duquesne University, where he is a senior lecturer. He doesn't walk because he has to; he has a car that sits unused in the parking lot for weeks at a time. He walks everywhere because he can.

He says it's the best part of living in Foster Square, a co-op community converted from Alcoa executive housing on the west side of Allegheny Center. "The essence of this place is its convenience and the time it saves," said Geissler, who often works from home, preparing SEE FOSTER, PAGE C-2 Above: Peter Geissler and his dog, Korbin, relax in his office on the second floor of his townhouse, which will be on Sept. 22's Downtown Living City Lifestyle Tour. "It looks kind of institutional," Geissler says of the Foster Square complex. "Nobody knows it's homes." Robin RombachPost-Gazette Church across the street, the sandstone structure was converted to a boarding house in the '50s and to two apartments in the '60s.

Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation considers it a "significant" example of Richardsonian Romanesque-style architecture. More importantly, it's a heady dose of reality for anyone considering taking on an abandoned or long-neglected SEE MIXICAN, PAGE C-2 PHONE: 412-263-1978 WEB: WWW.P0ST-GAZETTE.COMH0MES EDITOR: KEVIN KIRKLAND.