By Patricia Lowry, Post-Gazette Architecture Critic. Not so very long ago, a house's name was almost as important as its location, architecture and furnishings in establishing identity for Pittsburgh's wealthy elite.
Some new owners treasure the old name as a link to the house's history.
In 1904, William and Jane Walker built Muottas, designed by Alden and Harlow, who used stone quarried on the Sewickley Heights site to create a grand Colonial Revival with a long, columned porch. In old High German, the word means hilly, U-shaped land. It's a U-shaped hillside. Muottas is one of four houses associated with the family of Scottish-born Hay Walker, who settled in what is now Brighton Heights. In the 1850s, Walker and his wife, Janet Charters Walker, built a brick Italianate villa near what is now the corner of California and Termon avenues.