Version 8.2 of the list (pdf) includes new information about an interesting Decatur Car Works project by Lorenzo Wheeler, E.A. Shepard’s house in Montclair, and an addition to Richard Colgate’s house.
The second of two posts on pseudonyms in William I. Russell’s autobiography has been updated to reflect the identification of “Ned Banford” as Edward F. Sanford, thanks to a reader.
Version 8.1 of the list (pdf) includes minor corrections and goes out on a limb to attribute Julian Mitchell’s Long Branch, N.J. house to the firm:
Photo of Mitchell house in Helen-Chantal Pike, Images of America: West Long Branch Revisited (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2007), 54.
The house was the Monmouth County Junior League Designer Show House in 1997. Around that time, apparently, Stanford White began to be named as the architect. There are several reasons to believe that Charles A. Rich was the architect, including the appearance of the house.
The Trident Apartments in New Rochelle were built in two phases, the first in 1911-1912. How do we know when the building opened? The New Rochelle Pioneer ran a pleasant little item called “Hello People” that reported the name of every new subscriber to the phone company. The June 1 edition of 1912 welcomed the Trident Apartment.
Frederick Mathesius, who would run the Trident Realty Co. for decades, was already involved with the company by at least 1912, so it makes sense to assume that he was the architect. He did not join Rich’s firm until 1913.
The side facade of the building’s 1920 second phase, above, looks a bit like the side facade of South Fayerweather Hall at Dartmouth (1906), below:
Douglas Sloane “the carpet manufacturer” had the firm build a house in Rye, N.Y. around 1888. The house has been altered and the grounds subdivided, but the main structure is still there:
It is possible that the carriage house survives as well.
The Smith College news service has photos of the renovations of Northrop and Gillett Houses (1910-1911) and Burton Hall (1913).
During the early-twentieth century building boom that created those buildings, Smith College President Laurenus Seelye retired and commissioned a house near the campus from Charles Rich:
President Seelye’s house (1909)
The entry porch is somewhat similar to that of the firm’s contemporary Baldwin House, a few blocks away:
For some time the list of buildings on this site erroneously attributed Christ Episcopal Church in Poughkeepsie (1887, William A. Potter) to the firm. Version 7.7 of the list, posted 06.12.2011, reflected only the correction of this error.
What the firm did design for the church was its Albert Tower, Jr. Memorial Rectory (1903):
Lorenzo Wheeler formed a firm with Hugh Lamb in 1877 for the immediate purpose of completing the designs for a library in Danbury, Connecticut:
Version 8.0 of the list (pdf) now credits the firm with:
What’s new in version 7.7 of the list? (pdf)
A book update
A new job with an emphasis on the November-April period will slow work on the book until the spring. New buildings keep appearing: the whole project is taking longer than expected. The estimated publication date has been pushed back to 2014.