Crime & Safety
Historic Pittsburgh-Area Hotel Destroyed By Fire
The Belvedere Hotel had stood for more than a century before the fire reduced it to rubble.
The historic Belvedere Hotel in Oklahoma, a tiny borough northeast of Pittsburgh, was destroyed in an overnight fire that is being called suspicious.
According to the Apollo Historical Society, the Hotel Belvedere was built more than a century ago 5 by Joseph Gianini who was born in Switzerland in 1852. He immigrated to the United States, built the hotel in 1905 and and named it “Belvedere,” which means “beautiful view” in Italian.
The hotel’s heyday was in the early 1900s, when passenger trains stopped across from it, according to a historical society article on the hotel.
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The building had fallen into disrepair in recent years. Lanna Planitzer purchased the Belvedere in 1979 and hoped to restore it but lacked the financial resources. She moved out of the hotel in 2017 after it was condemned and it has been vacant since.
‘SUSPICIOUS’ FIRE BURNS HISTORIC HOTEL: The Oklahoma Boro Fire Chief says a fire at the Belvedere Hotel broke out around midnight this morning. No utilities on makes him believe this is suspicious. The hotel is 110 years old, he says. @WTAE pic.twitter.com/OECYHOXDM1
— Chris Lovingood WTAE (@CLovingoodWTAE) July 24, 2019
Here’s 2 photos captured by people first on the scene of the fire —-before the historic Belvedere hotel collapsed from the flames. @KDKA pic.twitter.com/heHTFwlSAe
— MEGHAN SCHILLER (@MeghanKDKA) July 24, 2019
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