Richard Morris Hunt Biography

Dromo's Den

HUNT, Richard Morris (1828–95). An American architect, born at Brattleboro, Vt., the brother of William Morris Hunt. At 15 he began the study of architecture in Geneva, Switzerland, and five years later entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the first of American students there. After travel in Europe, Asia, and Egypt, he was employed as inspector of works on the Louvre, and, under his old master Lefuel, who had succeeded Visconti, he had charge of the details of the Pavillon de la Bibliothèque. In 1855 he returned to his own country, worked under Walter on the Capitol extension at Washington, and later established in New York the earliest American atelier, or studio, of architecture, which became a nursery of great architects and the pioneer of all American training schools of architecture. He was the designer of the Lenox Library, the Tribune Building, New York, the United States Naval Observatory at Washington, the Divinity Building at Yale, the Administration Building for the World's Fair, Chicago, the Yorktown Monument, the earlier buildings of Hampton Institute (Virginia), the pedestal of the statue of Liberty in New York harbor, and the Fogg Museum of Harvard University. Among private houses by him are those of H. G. Marquand, W. K. Vanderbilt, New York; the country house of George Vanderbilt, Biltmore, N. C.; and several beautiful summer houses at Newport, R. I., including Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont's "Marble House," and "The Breakers." Mr. Hunt exercised a powerful influence on the architecture of America—less, perhaps, by the intrinsic merit of his designs, though they were often of a high order, than by the inspiring force of his personality. He was one of the founders and in 1888 became president of the Institute of Architects. He was Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and a foreign associate of the Institute of France. In 1898 the associated architectural and art societies of New York City erected a beautiful memorial to him, including a bust; inserted in the Central Park wall, it faces Fifth Avenue at Seventieth Street. Consult "Richard Morris Hunt: His Art and Work," in Architecture and Building, 1895 (New York, 1895).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XI. (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 610.