By Larry Katz
One day in 2000 while driving along Apple Street in Pittsburgh, Jonnet Solomon noticed a historical marker in front of a large, abandoned house. Solomon, a young woman who had emigrated to the United States from Guyana in 1984 with her family when she was eight years old, could not have expected that her decision to get out of her car to check out the marker and the dilapidated Queen Anne-style mansion behind it would change the course of her life.
The inscription on the plaque was brief: “Here at the Cardwell School of Music, this first national Black opera company was founded in 1941 by Mary Cardwell Dawson. Noted for its musical genius, it performed for 21 years in Pittsburgh, Washington, New York and other cities.” Solomon’s curiosity was aroused. In addition to her work as an accountant, she was also a musician who performed in her father Phil’s well-regarded steel drum band. She had been on the lookout for a community service project. Perhaps she could help rescue this crumbling historic landmark. “I started asking people if they knew anything about Mary Cardwell Dawson,” Solomon recalls. “A lot of people had never heard of her. But others remembered her very well. Some even had artifacts they had saved. One man had me follow him into his basement where he had stored costumes used in her operas. When I told my parents about it, they told me I was crazy going down into a basement with a stranger.”
The more Solomon learned about Dawson and the role the house on Apple Street had played in Pittsburgh’s Black community, the more fascinated she became.
In 1930 “Woogie” Harris bought the house, which was built in 1894, and used it to throw gala parties. He also rented rooms to visiting Black entertainers and sports figures who were unable to find accommodations in PIttsburgh’s segregated hotels. The house became known to locals as Mystery Manor, because you never knew who you’d see coming and going. Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Lena Horne, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Louis, Roberto Clemente and members of the Pittsburgh Steelers were all guests at one time or another.
“Woogie was a racketeer,” Solomon says. “People called him The Bank.”
The Bank made his fortune running the numbers game in Pittsburgh and as an entrepreneur as well. He was involved in Pittsburgh’s Black baseball teams and local night spots. He also supported the Black community by making loans to Black entrepreneurs unable to get financing from traditional sources. And when Mary Cardwell Dawson needed a new home for her music school, she found one on the third floor of Woogie’s house, where her students would include future jazz piano great Ahmad Jamal.
Dawson, one of the very few Black students to graduate from New England Conservatory at that time, found there were no opportunities for opera singers of color.
She would not be deterred, however, and in 1941 founded the National Negro Opera Company, which presented operas in Pittsburgh, New York, Washington and other cities until her death in 1962.
Solomon found Dawson’s dedication and determination to provide opportunities to aspiring Black performers inspirational. She is not alone.
Opera singer Denyce Graves starred in “The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson,” a play with music written by Sandra Seaton that was presented at New York’s Glimmerglass Festival in 2021.
And now Boston-based songwriter Dawn Carroll has teamed with veteran guitarist/singer/producer Jon Butcher to release Songs for Mary, a collection of songs that celebrate the lives and struggles of Dawson and some of the famous visitors to Woogie’s house. Carroll and Butcher plan to use the songs in a stage production they are now working on titled “If the Walls Could Talk.”
Back in 2000, Solomon found herself so moved by Dawson’s story and so appalled by the decrepit state of the former home of the National Negro Opera Company that she did something extraordinary, especially for someone in her early 20s. Teaming with an elderly neighbor, Mariam White, Solomon bought Mystery Manor for $18,000 from the Bank of New York, whose representatives seemed delighted to unload the property.
What did her friends and family think of the purchase? “They thought I was crazy,” she says.
Solomon and White set about making plans to raise funds to restore the house. Their hope was to turn it into a museum showcasing Dawson’s work and a cultural center that would carry forth Dawson’s mission. Naively, Solomon figured that the story of Dawson and Mystery Manor was so compelling that she would find supporters eager to help her restore this landmark building. But the process turned into something far more difficult and far more expensive than she anticipated. Now, more than 20 years after buying the house, Solomon’s fight to save the house is still ongoing.
As the years passed, the condition of the house deteriorated due to vandalism, weather and its many years of neglect. Solomon was besieged by developers looking to tear down the house and build housing on the land. Many of her backers have passed away, including her partner Mariam White. Other supporters have come and then gone as the project drags on.
Solomon’s biggest problem is financial. The cost of saving, restoring and converting the house into a museum, cultural center and performance space has steadily risen and is now an estimated $6 million.
While she has received several grants, including $500,000 from the Richard King Mellon Foundation in 2021, she is still a couple of million dollars short of what she needs. Her main task at the moment is fundraising.
The project received a major boost when the National Trust for Historic Preservation designated the building one of the 11 most endangered historic sites in the U.S. And awareness of Mary Caldwell Dawson’s legacy is growing; her New England Conservatory alma mater will belatedly recognize Dawson with the installation of a portrait of her commissioned and donated by Dawn Carroll. A professional designer, Carroll is also putting together a team of colleagues to assist in the restoration, while planning to make a film documenting the work. “All of this is helpful and appreciated, but it’s not enough,” Solomon says. “The stories in the newspapers, the interviews, the reports on TV, it’s very nice but we’re still not there.”
The good news is that work to stabilize and winterize the house has begun. Solomon sounds hopeful yet concerned as she contemplates all that remains to be done after her more than two decades of effort. Embodying the indomitable spirit of Mary Cardwell Dawson herself, Solomon remains steadfast in her commitment to complete the restoration of Mystery Manor and more importantly to carry on Dawson’s mission of offering a path for aspiring young artists.
With all the obstacles she faced—and continues to face—has Solomon ever considered giving up?
“No,” she says without a moment’s hesitation. “I am not someone who gives up. Anyone who knows me knows that is not who I am.”
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