Everything about Stanford White totally explained
Stanford White (
November 9,
1853 –
June 25,
1906) was an
American architect and partner in the architectural firm of
McKim, Mead, and White, the frontrunner among
Beaux-Arts firms. He designed a long series of houses for the rich and the very rich, and various public, institutional, and religious buildings, some of which can be found to this day in places like
Sea Gate, Brooklyn. His design principles embodied the "
American Renaissance". In 1906 White was murdered by millionaire
Harry K. Thaw, leading to a widely-reported trial.
Birth
Stanford White was the son of
Shakespearean scholar
Richard Grant White and Alexina Black Mease (1830–1921).
McKim, Mead and White
A quote by Stanford White:
Two men set off to build a dream; for one it ended with a scheme.
The other saw the scheme as part and portion of the work of art.
For the one the dream was finished when;
the drawings were done. He laid down his pen.
The other made the dream complete; with bricks and mortar and concrete.
Some argue that an architect; should stick to plans and not erect.
But we prefer to build our plans; not trusting them to others’ hands.
If our approach to some is new; submit this history for review
‘Twas in the 16th century; the Vatican sought to build, you see.
They hired a master builder who; would draw the plans – then see it through.
Stanford White's architectural career began as the principal assistant to
Henry Hobson Richardson, the greatest American architect of the day, creator of a style recognized today as "
Richardsonian Romanesque." In 1878, White embarked for a year and a half in Europe, and when he returned to New York in September 1879, he joined
Charles Follen McKim and
William Rutherford Mead to form
McKim, Mead and White.
White designed the second
Madison Square Garden (1890; demolished in 1925), The Cable Building—the Broadway cable car power station (611 Broadway, 1892),
Madison Square Presbyterian Church, the
New York Herald Building (1894; demolished), the First
Bowery Savings Bank, at
the Bowery and Grand Street, 1894,
Washington Square Arch (1889),
Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square, and the
Century Club, all in
New York City. He helped develop Tesla's
Wardenclyffe Tower (his last design). White designed the First Methodist Episcopal Church in
Baltimore, Maryland (1887), now Lovely Lane United Methodist Church. He also built Cocke, Rouss, and Old Cabell Halls at the
University of Virginia and rebuilt
The Rotunda (University of Virginia) in 1898 after it burned down three years earlier (his re-creation was later reverted back to
Thomas Jefferson's original design for the
United States Bicentennial in 1976). He also designed the Blair Mansion at 7711 Eastern Ave. in Silver Spring Md now being used as a Restaurant.
McKim, Mead and White also designed the American Academy in Rome, which crowns the Gianicolo hill, and looks across the city to the Villa Medici and the Borghese gardens. An imposing edifice, the American Academy is built in the style of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the north and south wings of which McKim, Mead, and White designed in 1911.
Homes and cottages
In the division of projects within the firm, the social and gregarious White landed the majority of commissions for private houses. His fluent draftsmanship was highly convincing to clients who might not get much visceral understanding from a floorplan, and his intuition and facility caught the mood. White's
Long Island houses have survived well, despite the loss of
Harbor Hill in 1947, originally set on in
Roslyn. White's homes are of three types, depending on their locations:
Gold Coast chateaux, neo-Colonial structures in the neighborhood of his own house at "Box Hill" in
Smithtown (White's wife was a Smith), and the South Fork houses from
Southampton to
Montauk Point.
Among his
Newport "cottages",
Rosecliff (for Mrs.
Hermann Oelrichs, 1898-1902) adapted
Mansart's
Grand Trianon, but provided this house built for receptions, dinners and dances with fluent spatial planning and well-contrived dramatic internal views
en filade.
In his "informal" shingled cottages, there were usually double corridors for separate circulation, (
illustration, left) so that a guest never bumped into a laundress with a basket of bed linens. Bedrooms were characteristically separated from hallways by a dressing-room foyer lined with closets, so that an inner door and an outer door give superb privacy (still the mark of a really good hotel). White lived the same life as his clients, not quite so lavishly perhaps, and he knew how the house had to perform: like a first-rate hotel, theater foyer, or a theater set with appropriate historical references. White was an apt designer, who was ready to do a cover for
Scribner's Magazine or design a pedestal for his friend
Augustus Saint-Gaudens' sculpture. He extended the limits of architectural services to include
interior decoration, dealing in art and antiques, and even planning and designing parties. He collected paintings, pottery, and
tapestries. If White couldn't procure the right antiques for his interiors, he'd sketch neo-Georgian standing
electroliers or a Renaissance library table. Outgoing and social, he possessed a large circle of friends and acquaintances, many of whom became clients. White had a major influence in the "
Shingle Style" of the 1880s, on Neo-Colonial style, and the Newport cottages for which he's celebrated.
Mansions and social clubs
He designed and decorated
Fifth Avenue mansions for the
Astors, the
Vanderbilts (in 1905), and other high society families. His
Washington Square Arch still stands in
Washington Square Park, and so do many of his clubs, which were focal points of New York society: the Century, Metropolitan, Players, Lambs, Colony and Harmony clubs. His clubhouse for the
Atlantic Yacht Club, built in 1894 overlooking
Gravesend Bay, burned down in 1934. Sons of society families also resided in White's
St. Anthony Hall Chapter House at Williams College (now occupied by college offices).
(External Link
)(External Link) Pictured at:
(External Link)
He was noted for his womanizing and installed a red velvet swing in his bachelor-like apartment in the
"Giralda" tower at old Madison Square Garden, where he entertained young women. The red velvet swing became a focal point of press coverage of the trial.
Death
During the suggestive chorus song, "I Could Love a Million Girls," at the premiere performance of the musical revue
Mam'zelle Champagne at the Madison Square Roof Garden (a building that he'd designed 15 years previously), White was shot point blank in the face and killed by
Harry K. Thaw. Thaw was the jealous millionaire husband of
Evelyn Nesbit, a popular actress and artist's model, with whom White had a manipulative and sexual relationship when she was 16 (to his 47). The initial reaction was one of good cheer as elaborate party tricks amongst the upper echelon of New York Society were common at the time. However, when it became apparent that White was dead, hysteria ensued.
William Randolph Hearst's newspapers sensationalized the murder, and it became known as the
Trial of the Century. Years later, White's son, Lawrence Grant White would write bitterly, "On the night of June 25th, 1906, while attending a performance at Madison Square Garden, Stanford White was shot from behind [by] a crazed profligate whose great wealth was used to besmirch his victim's memory during the series of notorious trials that ensued." White was buried in
St. James, New York.
Archives
White's extensive professional outgoing correspondence and a small body of architectural drawings for his own residences are held by the Drawings and Archives Department of
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at
Columbia University. The major archive for his firm, McKim, Mead & White, is held by the
New-York Historical Society.
Photo gallery
Image:Farragut sculpture.JPG|Sculpture in Madison Square.
Image:Plaque Farragut Sculpture.JPG|Plaque at the base of the sculpture in Madison Square,
White was also the architect for monuments such as the one to David Farragut in Madison Square]] in New York City and the Adams Memorial in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington D.C.
Image:Stanford White 33.jpg|New York American on June 25, 1906.
Fictional works based at least in part on the Thaw/White murder
Further Information
Get more info on 'Stanford White'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://stanford_white.totallyexplained.com">Stanford White Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
)