John Kellum

John Kellum (1809 — 1871) was an American architect in practice in New York City.

Kellum was trained as a carpenter, largely self-taught in architecture, and was taken into partnership in 1846 by the well-established New York architect Gamaliel King. Together they established a reputation for constructing many of the new cast-iron commercial buildings that changed the aspect of New York. [Buildings by the partnership included the landmark Cary Building, 105 Chambers Street (1856–7).] They remained in partnership until 1859, when Kellum left to open a practice in partnership with his son. [ [http://www.stoningtonhistory.org/archiv16.htm Stonington history: historical footnotes: Mary M. Thacher, "The stately hoimes of Lambert's Cove"] (2001), a group of three documented King and Kellum houses in Stonington, Connecticut.]

Kellum was the architect to Alexander T. Stewart, the department store magnate for the A.T. Stewart store at Broadway and 10th Street (1859-62, demolished), which occupied the entire blockfront [Later occupied by Wanamaker's, it burned in 1956 and was redeveloped.] He designed Stewart's marble mansion on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, that was the first of Fifth Avenue's marble palazzos,

At the time of his death Kellum was occupied in an even grander project for Stewart, laying out Garden City, Long Island on the convert|7000|acre|km2|sing=on tract in Hempstead township that Stewart had bought. It was one of the first American "garden city" planned suburbs.

Kellum was also the primary architect [Thomas Little, a political appointee on the New York City Board of Supervisors, was also credited.] of the New York County Courthouse (1861 onwards; completed 1881), on Chambers Street behind New York City Hall; it is known as the "Tweed Courthouse" after William Marcy "Boss" Tweed, who commissioned it and profited from kickbacks during its construction. The exterior is in the Italianate manner; immense cast-iron structural and decorative elements are to be seen in the public spaces of the rich interiors.

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