A Pittsburgh property that played a significant role in Black American music history has received funding for a long-overdue renovation.
WESA reports the former headquarters of the National Negro Opera Company has received a $1.75 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. The Queen Anne-style property was built in 1894 and served as the first home of the company founded in 1941 by music educator Mary Cardwell Dawson. At a time when Blacks had few opportunities performing opera, Dawson’s company staged presentations that enabled these singers to play roles they could not access in mainstream opera companies.
After Dawson relocated her company to Washington, DC, the property was converted into Mystery Manor, a boarding house and social hall for Black athletes and entertainers who were denied accommodations in Pittsburgh. Among the notables who stayed at the property were boxing champion Joe Louis and music greats Cab Calloway and Lena Horne.
In the 1970s, the building was abandoned and fell into disrepair. Accountant Jonnet Solomon acquired the long-vacant property in 2000 and established the nonprofit National Opera House, but she struggled for years to raise funds for its restoration. In 2020, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named it one of the country’s 11 most endangered historic places.
Solomon estimated the total project restoration would cost $7 million. The new grant puts the fundraising level at more than half that sum, and the Mellon funds will be directed in restoring the property’s exterior and roof.
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Photo courtesy of the National Opera House on Instagram
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