The U.S. Open trophy and the Pittsburgh Steelers trophy from their 28-23 win over the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII are posed in front of the clubhouse at Oakmont Country Club, where the 2016 U.S. Open will be held, during a media preview of the course in Oakmont, Pa., Monday, Sept. 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

When the television cameras pan over the Oakmont Country Club golf course this weekend during coverage of the U.S. Open, inevitably they will highlight the Oakmont clubhouse, which has stood there since Oct. 1, 1904. When that sight comes across the television, those who work at MCF Architecture – a Division of McKinley Architecture and Engineering can swell with pride.

The founder of their company, Edward Stotz, was the man who designed that clubhouse, which has stood mostly unchanged since it opened more than 120 years ago. That is a testament to resiliency of both Stotz’s design and the structure itself.

The changes in the field of architecture since the clubhouse’s opening can be summed up in one statement from Robert Russ, director and senior architect at MCF: Edward Stotz wrote his specifications by gaslight at age 21, traveling by horse-drawn carriage in a city still without steel-framed buildings.

The plans themselves were drawn before the advent of blueprints, rather drawn on oilcloth so that they remained sturdy enough to survive the job site.

That’s a big difference from now, an era of computer-aided design.

“Oakmont is very special to us in that he was a very special architect … that was dedicated to the craft, worked hard and built a firm and a legacy of projects that have stood the test of time and are still standing here in the Pittsburgh area.”

According to the history of Oakmont, Stotz earned the opportunity to design the clubhouse when Henry C. Fownes, who bought the land that would become Oakmont with brother William, recruited him after he designed a home for Henry Fownes. The design hearkened to that of a Scottish farmhouse that would blend in with the surroundings of the course.

Since opening, Oakmont has been the most frequent site of the U.S. Open, hosting it 10 times in 1927, 1935, 1953, 1962, 1973, 1983, 1994, 2007, 2016 and 2025. Through those years, though, the clubhouse’s visage has barely changed.

In a Golf Magazine video spotlighting Oakmont’s history, it’s mentioned that the clubhouse floor and benches in the men’s locker room are original to the clubhouse. The pockmarks on the floor and benches from the golf spikes belong to some of the game’s legends – Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Jones and Tiger Woods.

“We would aspire to hope that the users would find so much joy and passion and opportunity with their buildings, that these layers of history would be on top of all that and be preserved to become an important structure,” Russ said.

MCF also has a Wheeling connection these days. In January, MCF – the longest-running firm in Western Pennsylvania and 17th longest in the United States – and McKinley Architecture and Engineering merged. The combined company is now 100 employees strong and serves a wide area in K-12 education, sports and recreation, historic rehabilitation, healthcare and civic design while offering comprehensive in-house engineering resources.

The quality of that work is shown in the endurance of Oakmont Country Club, but Russ said there are many Pittsburgh-area buildings that instill that pride among MCF employees.

“When I walk around downtown Pittsburgh, I can see three or four (of our designs) from the building where our offices are,” he said, “and I walk past them every day.”