[4] The mansion was commissioned by Carrie T. Holland, youngest daughter of pioneer Pittsburgh iron manufacturer James K. Moorehead, as a gift for her husband William Jacob Holland, pastor of Bellefield Presbyterian Church at Fifth and Bellefield avenues in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh.

It became a Knights of Columbus club before being purchased in 1936 by Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company for laboratory operations of its subsidiary, Columbia-Southern Chemical Corporation.

The university's Department of Music moved into the building in 1971 from its previous quarters on the ninth floor of the Cathedral of Learning.

[11] The library's holdings include approximately 65,000 music scores and books, 25,000 sound recordings, 1,500 microforms, and 150 journals.

Collections include Early American hymnals and tunebooks, volumes of sheet music with regional significance, seventeenth and eighteenth century prints of English sacred and secular works, and music belonging to the late William Steinberg and Fidelis Zitterbart.