Personal Data

Stanford White was born on November 9, 1853, in New York, the son of Richard Grant White and his wife, Alexina Black Mease.

He married on February 7, 1884, to Bessie Springs Smith, daughter of J. Lawrence Smith.

Stanford White died on June 25, 1906, in New York, murdered by Harry Thaw.

Career

Stanford White entered the New York offices of Henry Hobson Richardson (Gambrill and Richardson) in 1872, at the age of nineteen.  In 1878, he travelled to Europe, where he remained for a year.  He returned to New York and, on June 21, 1880, entered into partnership with Charles Follen McKim and William Rutherford Mead, taking the place of McKim and Mead’s former partner, William B. Bigelow.  McKim, Mead, and White subsequently grew into one of New York’s most prominent firms.

The firm’s Boston work — led by McKim until his death in 1909 — included the Algonquin Club (1887), Boston Public Library (commissioned in 1887 and completed in 1895), Johnston Gate at Harvard (1889), the Shaw Memorial opposite the State House (1897), Harvard Union (1900), Symphony Hall (1900), and the New England Trust Company Building (1905), Harvard Stadium (1903-1910), Phillips Brooks Memorial in Copley Square (1910), and Harvard Business School (1924) in Brighton.  The firm also undertook a number of residential commissions in Boston, including several houses in the Back Bay and bachelor flats at 66 Beacon Street, at the corner of Charles and Beacon.

The firm’s work in New York — much of it designed by White — included the Villard Houses on Madison (between 50th and 51st), Pennsylvania Station, Madison Square Garden (where White maintained an apartment and was murdered by Harry Thaw), Madison Square Presbyterian Church, and the Library and other buildings at Columbia University. They also designed a number of private clubs in New York, including the University Club, the Century Club, the Players Club, and the Metropolitan Club.  The firm also designed the Newport Casino and Rhode Island State Capitol in Providence, and oversaw restoration of the White House in 1902-1903.  And the firm designed a number of homes in New York, Newport, and the Berkshires.

For further information, see:

A Monograph of the Works of McKim, Mead & White: 1879-1915 (The Architectural Book Publishing Company, Paul Wenzel & Maurice Krakow, New York, 1915-20).  Originally published in four volumes. Reprinted and supplemented with introductory material by the Arno Press, New York; 1977.  Reprinted and supplemented with introductory material by Dover Publications, Inc., New York; 1990.

McKim, Mead & White, Architects, by Leland M. Roth (Harper & Rowe, New York; 1983).

The Houses of McKim, Mead & White. by Samuel G. White, photographs by Jonathan Wallen (Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York; 1998).

Back Bay Work