Today he is little remembered by most of us, but when the pioneering astronomer and humanitarian John Brashear died in 1920, condolences poured in from around the country to his home at 1954 Perrysville Ave.

The long list of honorary pallbearers shows he was held in high regard by a wide range of prominent men, among them Andrew Mellon, Taylor Allderdice, Charles M. Schwab, Franklin Nicola and John W. Beatty.

Brashear was a self-made, self-educated man who, after a long day in the rolling mill, would work with his wife, Phoebe, in the lab and observatory at the house he built with his own hands on Holt Street on the South Side Slopes -- "our little cottage on the hill," he called it.

Those buildings are no longer with us, but the Perrysville Avenue house and laboratory stand, diminished but still redolent of a rich and noble past.

Lisa Miles, author of "Resurrecting Allegheny City," wants more people -- especially young people -- to remember Brashear and his work, and to that end she has led neighborhood tours and workshops in recent weeks, exploring the exterior of the Brashear lab and other Allegheny City sites.

Her project, supported by the Buhl Foundation in honor of the city's 250th anniversary, culminates on Sunday with a community open house at the Brashear house. The event is a rare opportunity to see where Brashear lived and worked, making telescope lenses and other optical and scientific instruments. Although he admitted never having much of a head for or interest in business, the company he founded continues to this day as O'Hara-based L-3 Brashear.

The three-story, symmetrical, Second Empire-style house on Perry Hilltop has a wide porch overlooking the street below. Brashear loved his home's "magnificent view for twelve miles down the Ohio and over every point of the compass save the east," as he wrote in his autobiography. He and Phoebe shared the house with their grandchildren, daughter Effie and son-in-law James McDowell, who worked with Brashear in the factory and continued it after his death.

The five-bedroom, 3 1/2-bath, center-hall house, now owned by the bank that foreclosed on the previous owner, is for sale with a $164,900 asking price (craigcraig.com). Miles hopes the community open house, from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., will help attract a new owner who will give it the loving care it deserves. The factory, now a locally owned separate parcel, also is in need of repair.

On Sunday Miles will talk about the buildings' significance and show work done by the students over the past month, depicting the history of Allegheny City, annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907, and their visions for the future of what is now the city's North Side.

Long after the Brashears and McDowells left the house, its main staircase was enclosed, but the original room layout on the first floor remains, with a library to the left and a parlor to the right. It leads to the large dining room that also served as the Brashear company's board room, hosting scientists who came from around the world to consult and work with Brashear.

The land also has significance, Miles points out, as part of the Venango Trail and the location of the first Allegheny Observatory. Its first director, Samuel Pierpont Langley, made early experiments in aviation off the hilltop.

By the 1880s Brashear's patron, William Thaw, owned  1/2 acre of land there, about 200 yards from the observatory, and built the factory and house for the Brashears. The idea of moving from one hilltop to another was daunting for Brashear, then still recovering from a bad fall from a ladder.

But his work "was so intimately blended [with Langley's] that it seemed a wise move to have my shop nearer the Observatory," Brashear wrote.

So began in 1886 a grand chapter in Allegheny City's history, one that should be widely acknowledged and celebrated. Thanks to Miles for making a good start.

For more information, visit lisamilesviolin.com.