There is a stretch of Quaker Hollow Road where the trees close in, the houses pull back from the street, and the Allegheny Country Club runs along the back of the properties instead of a neighbor’s fence. Birchmere sits in the middle of it on 10.8 acres, with the club’s private Lane’s End Drive tracing the eastern edge of the land. The ground was part of the David Park holdings until 1905, and the Birchmere lots were laid out in the 1987 Goodwood Estate Plan, so this is one of the Heights’ original parcels, carrying a house that was finished in 1994 at 16,406 square feet. It has the scale of the older estates up here and systems a generation younger.
The slate is the first thing you notice from the drive. All of it was repaired and re-laid this year, which is the sort of work that gets done once and then outlasts the people who did it.
Inside, the owner’s suite is on the main level, and that single fact changes how the house lives. Everything you need day to day is on one floor. The second story becomes the children’s or guests’ domain, and the stairs never become the reason to move. A dedicated office opens to its own brick-walled patio, far enough from the family rooms that a full workday can happen there without the rest of the house noticing.
Upstairs are four bedrooms, each with an en suite bath, so there is no negotiating over a hall bathroom on a school morning. A second office is already set up to be whatever the household needs most: a craft room, a sewing room, or the spot where homework gets done.
Then there is the pool. It is fully enclosed for swimming twelve months a year, but the ceiling slides open and the mirrored side walls fold back completely, so on a July evening the whole room turns into an open-air pavilion with the lawn on one side and the water in the middle. On a January morning it closes up, and the swim happens anyway. Sliding doors open from the pool straight to the grounds.
Birchmere is really three homes. The two-bedroom guest cottage has its own entrance, its own roof and gutters serviced in 2024, and its own septic system, which makes it a true second residence for visiting parents, a caretaker, or grown children home for a stretch. Over the garage is a one-bedroom apartment with a full living room and kitchen and a new HVAC system installed this year, a real place for an au pair or a long-term guest to live while the main house stays exactly as it is.
For a property this size, the condition of the mechanicals matters as much as the finishes, and the recent list is a long one:
All slate repaired and re-laid, 2026
Roofing and gutter work, main house 2026 and guest cottage 2024
New water heaters within the last few years
New HVAC in the garage apartment, 2026
Two separate septic systems, main house and cottage, both serviced August 2026 by Economy Septic: 5,000-gallon tanks, dosing pump, alarmed
Public water through the Sewickley municipal system
All of it sits in the Quaker Valley School District, a short drive from the village of Sewickley, where the Saturday farmers market, the library, and dinner at Vivo or Mediterra are part of the weekly rhythm. Pittsburgh International Airport and downtown are each about fifteen minutes away, which is the quiet advantage of this side of the river: country club land out the back door, and a flight or a client dinner inside of half an hour.
