Personal Data

Thomas Byrd Epps was born on November 9, 1896, in Dayton, Ohio, the son of Julian Allegre Epps and his wife, Juidetta A. Bernicchi (daughter of Francesco Bernicchi).

Thomas Epps married first on October 1, 1921, in Boston, to Bertha Grace Blake (b. 9Feb1900 in Lynn; d. 3Feb1995 in Rochester NY), daughter of Oliver Boynton Blake and his wife, Mary Ellen O’Brien. They divorced in the 1930s; she remarried in 1957 to Philip Paro.

He married second in the mid-1940s to Margaret Killeen Lonval (b. 31Jan1905 in Lynn; d. Jul1989), daughter of Arthur William Lonval and his wife, Edith F. Meader (daughter of John Meader).

Thomas Epps died on November 18. 1980, in Boston.

Career

Thomas Byrd Epps graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1920 with a degree in architecture.

In about 1922, he opened an office in Boston.

From about 1929 until the late 1940s, he was in partnership with Harold Symmes Graves. It appears that Harold Graves retired from the partnership but continued to maintain an office with Thomas Epps until his death in 1952. Thomas Epps formed a new firm, Thomas Byrd Epps, Inc., at about that time. He continued to practice until the early 1970s, after which he devoted his time to real estate.

In 1951, he and his wife, Margaret, purchased the Gray Gables Inn in Bourne, a hotel and restaurant in what had formerly been the summer White House of Grover Cleveland. They operated it for several years, and then sold it in 1958.

Back Bay Work