Mystery writer K.C. Constantine's home for sale in Greensburg's Academy Hill

Jun. 2—When Carl Kosak returned from work to his home in Greensburg's Academy Hill neighborhood, he got something to eat and then headed down to the basement.

That's where he assumed his second identity — one long hidden from co-workers, neighbors and friends — as acclaimed mystery writer K.C. Constantine.

"My father had a desk at the bottom of the basement stairs, and that's where he wrote," said Kosak's only son, Chris Kosak of Moraga, Calif. "He wrote every single day — some days maybe that was only one sentence — but he put himself in that chair at that desk and he wrote."

Karl Kosak died at 88 on March 23. He was preceded in death by his wife, Linda Tweedy Kosak, in 2018.

The Kosak home at 231 Center Ave. is listed for sale for $184,500 with Keller Williams Realty.

"He lived here so modestly for so long, and no one knew who he was," said Realtor Cahla Downs, listing agent for Keller Williams' Melissa Merriman team.

The front of the brick American foursquare-style house is shaded by large trees. The sloped backyard is separated from neighbors on the next street by another line of trees.

The first floor contains a living room with a gas fireplace and built-in shelving and a dining room, both with hardwood floors, and a tidy, tile-floored kitchen. Both dining room and kitchen have doors accessing a large wooden deck.

There are two bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor, and another large bedroom and walk-in attic on the second floor.

Besides the writer's lair, the basement contains a quintessential Western Pennsylvania element, the so-called Pittsburgh toilet.

"It actually has a bidet on it," Downs said. "I've never seen one with a bidet before."

Taking a swing

The basement has another feature unusual in many older homes, Chris Kosak said — a high ceiling that also aided the writer in his work.

"He was an avid golfer," Kosak said. "When he was writing stories, occasionally he would take a break and he would swing a golf club. It was part of his creative process.

"He would get to some point in the story and reflect on it, or maybe unplug from it a little bit, and take his golf club and start swinging. The ceiling was high enough for him to swing a golf club," he said.

Other features of the 3,598-square-foot residence include natural gas heat and central air conditioning.

The Kosaks moved into the house in 1980, under a rent-to-own agreement with Linda Kosak's father, Emmett Tweedy, who was principal of Turtle Creek High School and a real estate investor.

They came to Greensburg from Penn Hills when Carl Kosak took a job teaching writing at Seton Hill College (now Seton Hill University). He later worked as a proofreader at the Tribune-Review.

The writer's life itself had many of the picaresque elements needed for a good yarn.

Born in 1934 in McKees Rocks, he was the son of noted painter Constantine Kosak, a founding member of the Pittsburgh Artists' Guild whose association with Pittsburgh's Kaufman department store family included creating woodwork at their world-renowned Fayette County retreat, Fallingwater.

The walls of the Center Avenue house are adorned with Constantine Kosak's paintings. Dozens also are stacked in the attic and basement, even after Chris Kosak shipped 40 to his home in California.

Downs said she has been searching, so far unsuccessfully, for someone to take the paintings and would be happy to talk to anyone wanting more information about them.

A promising baseball player, Carl Kosak missed a chance to sign with the Pittsburgh Pirates due to a case of appendicitis, but had stints with the Baltimore Orioles and other semi-pro teams. A brush with the law left him with the choice of jail or the Marine Corps, and he chose the latter.

He also attended the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.

The writer's job

His best-known mysteries feature Mario Balzic, police chief in fictional Rocksburg, Pa., an amalgam of McKees Rocks, Greensburg and Johnstown. The first one appeared in 1972.

In 1989, he was nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel for the Rocksburg story "Joey's Case."

Kosak kept his literary identity hidden until 2011, when he appeared at the annual Festival of Mystery hosted by Mystery Lovers Bookshop in Oakmont.

He shunned the spotlight, his son said, not only because he was "incredibly shy and socially awkward," but also because staying in the background aided his writing.

"As a writer, his key job was to observe people. And the minute people know they're being observed, they change," Chris Kosak said. "If people knew they were sitting in a room with K.C. Constantine, they would act differently."

Having a chance to live in a noted writer's home is a draw for a potential buyer, Downs said, along with the overall sense of history and tradition that exists in the Academy Hill neighborhood.

Chris Kosak remembers many nights sitting on the deck with his father, listening to the trains rumbling over the nearby tracks.

"Talking with K.C. Constantine about everything from 'Star Trek' to writing while drinking Iron City beer, or Rolling Rock, there's a lot of good memories there," he said.

Though he wrote crime fiction, Chris Kosak said his father was always looked for beauty in whatever was happening.

"There was a lot of creativity and searching for beauty in that house," he said.

For more information on the property or to arrange a viewing, call 724-861-0500 or visit zillow.com.

Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shirley by email at smcmarlin@triblive.com or via Twitter .