William Ralph Emerson

William Ralph Emerson (March 11, 1833 - November 23, 1917) was an American architect.

Biography

Emerson was born in Alton, Illinois, a cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and trained in the office of Jonathan Preston (1801–1888), an architect–builder in Boston, Massachusetts. He formed an architectural partnership with Preston (1857–1861), practised alone for two years, then partnered with Carl Fehmer (1864-1873). On September 15, 1873 he married Sylvia Hathaway Watson.

Emerson's early works, such as the Portland Post Office, were in a neo-classical style, but he is best known for his mature Shingle Style houses and inns.

William Ralph Emerson was a friend to the Boston painter William Morris Hunt, who painted a portrait of Emerson's son Ralph, shown at an exhibition of Hunt's work at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1880. [ [http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=MowYAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22william+morris+hunt%22+Boston&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=BCfFrHtWEe&sig=hpNasqkc6F05IZ1d-Ny8ExOZKug&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result#PPA41,M1 Portrait of Master Ralph Emerson, Exhibition of the Works of William Morris Hunt, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Dec. 20, 1879-Jan. 31, 1880, Seventh Edition, Alfred Mudge & Son, Boston, 1880] ]

Emerson died on November 23, 1917, in Milton, Massachusetts.

Selected works

* 1867 Post Office and Courthouse, 169 Middle Street, Portland, Maine (demolished 1965)
* 1869 Sanford-Covell Villa Marina, 72 Washington Street, Newport, Rhode Island
* 1869 Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Mansion renovation, Woodstock, Vermont
* 1875 Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital, Harrison Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts
* 1881 Boston Art Club, 150 Newbury Street, Boston, Massachusetts
* 1887 Saint Jude's Episcopal Church, Seal Harbor, Maine
* 1887 "Tianderah" stone and shingle residence, Gilbertsville, New York; Listed on the National Historic Register, November 2, 1978 #78001894
* 1889 William James House, 95 Irving Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts
* 1890 The Reading Room, now part of the Bar Harbor Inn, Bar Harbor, Maine
* 1896 Felsted, a cottage for Frederick Law Olmsted, Deer Isle, Maine

References

* "The architecture of William Ralph Emerson", catalog by Cynthia Zaitzevsky with photography by Myron Miller, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass. 1969.