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Wilson Eyre

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Nationality
  
American

Occupation
  
Architect


Name
  
Wilson Eyre

Role
  
Architect

Wilson Eyre Wilson Eyre39s Graced Places

Born
  
October 30, 1858
Florence, Italy

Buildings
  
Charles Lang Freer HouseUniversity of Pennsylvania Museum (with Frank Miles Day and Cope & Stewardson)Swann Memorial Fountain (Eyre & McIlvaine, architects; Alexander Stirling Calder, sculptor)

Died
  
October 23, 1944, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Education
  
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Structures
  
The Anglecot, Charles Lang Freer House, Mask and Wig Club of the Unive, Church of St Luke and The, Sally Watson House

Similar People
  
Frank Miles Day, Frank Furness, Charles Klauder, Charles Lang Freer

Wilson Eyre, Jr. (October 30, 1858 – October 23, 1944) was an American architect, teacher and writer who practiced in the Philadelphia area. He is known for his deliberately informal and welcoming country houses, and for being an innovator in the Shingle Style.

Contents

Wilson Eyre Wilson Eyre Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Architect and author

Wilson Eyre httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

The son of Americans living abroad, he was born in Florence, Italy, and educated in Europe, Newport, Rhode Island, and Canada. He studied architecture briefly at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, joined the Philadelphia offices of James Peacock Sims in 1877, and took over the firm on Sims’s death in 1882. In 1911, he entered into partnership with John Gilbert McIlvaine, and opened a second office in New York City. The firm of Eyre & McIlvaine continued until 1939.

Wilson Eyre Wilson Eyre THE DOWN EAST DILETTANTE

For his most important early houses, "Anglecot" (1883) and "Farwood" (1884–85), he used a simple plan: a line of asymmetrical public rooms stretching along a single axis, extending even outside to a piazza. Like many Shingle Style architects, he employed the open "living hall" as an organizing element: all of the main first floor rooms connecting to the hall, often through large openings. In addition, he used staircases to extend the space of the hall to the second floor. According to architectural-historian Vincent Scully: "This sense of extended horizontal plane and intensified "positive" scale evident in Eyre's work becomes later a basic component in the work of [Frank Lloyd] Wright..." Eyre collaborated with artists such as Alexander Stirling Calder and Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Wilson Eyre Wilson Eyre Wikipedia

Following his early success, Eyre became a leader in the international country life movement, lecturing in England, and corresponding with British and German architects. He was one of the first U.S. architects to be featured in the Arts & Crafts magazine International Studio, and he was published by Hermann Muthesius, the chronicler of the so-called "English" house of the turn of the century. Prior to Frank Lloyd Wright's rise to prominence, Eyre was arguably the best-known domestic architect in the U.S. among foreign designers. His post-1890 country houses, such as "Allgates" (1910, expanded by Eyre & McIlvaine 1917) are among the most accomplished American essays in the restrained stucco cottage idiom popularized by C.F.A. Voysey and Ernest Newton in England.

Wilson Eyre Architectural Archives PennDesign

He was one of the founders and editors of House & Garden magazine. He designed many distinctive gardens with his residences, and wrote extensively of the need for interaction between rooms and outdoor spaces.

Wilson Eyre Wilson Eyre Collection Architectural Archives University of

He was also renowned for his distinctive artistic drawings, often in watercolor. His extant drawings are now housed in the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania. He was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1893. In August 1914 Eyre was stranded in Europe along with thousands of Americans attempting to escape the fighting that erupted in World War I. Eyre returned to the United States in late September and shared a cabin with Augustus P. Gardner, a member of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts.

Wilson Eyre PlanPhilly Look Up A Venetian palazzo for an elite fraternity

In 1917, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania, and was one of the founders of the T Square Club of Philadelphia in 1883. In 1910, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician.

Residences

Wilson Eyre Wilson Eyre Collection Architectural Archives University of

  • "Anglecot" (Charles Adams Potter house), 401 E. Evergreen Avenue, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1883). Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
  • "Farwood" (Richard L. Ashurst house), Overbrook, Pennsylvania (1884–85, demolished).
  • 220 Glenn road, Ardmore, PA, 19003
  • "Wisteria" (Charles A. Newhall house), 444 W. Chestnut Hill Avenue, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1884–85).
  • Dr. Henry Genet Taylor House and Office, 305 Cooper Street, Camden, New Jersey (1884–86). As of January 2015, renovation was underway by Rutgers University–Camden to convert the building into a Writers House.
  • Harriet D. Schaeffer house, 433 W. Stafford Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1888)
  • Sally Watson House, 5128 Wayne Ave., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1889).
  • Clarence B. Moore House, 1321 Locust Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1890).
  • Henry Cochran house, 3511 Baring Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1891).
  • Neill-Mauran House, 22nd & Delancey Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1891).
  • Dr. Joseph Leidy House and office, 1319 Locust Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1894).
  • Mrs. Evan Randolph house, 218 W. Chestnut Hill Avenue, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1906).
  • Clover Hill Farm, 910 Penn Valley Rd Media, Pennsylvania (1907).
  • Alterations to Wilson Eyre House, 1003-05 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1909–1910). It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.
  • "Allgates" (Horatio Gates Lloyd mansion), Coopertown Road, Haverford, Pennsylvania (1910, expanded by Eyre & McIlvaine 1917). Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
  • Additions to "Bel Orme" (Thomas Mott house), Matson Ford & County Line Roads, Radnor, Pennsylvania (Eyre & McIlvaine) (1917).
  • Other buildings

  • Mask & Wig Clubhouse, 310 Quince Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1894, altered by Eyre 1901). Murals by Maxfield Parrish. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
  • University of Pennsylvania Museum, 3260 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (with Frank Miles Day and Cope & Stewardson) (1895–99).
  • Corn Exchange Bank, Northeast corner 2nd & Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1896).
  • Carnegie Library, McPherson Square, 601 E. Indiana Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Eyre & McIlvaine) (1915–17)
  • Swann Memorial Fountain, Logan Circle, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Eyre & McIlvaine, architects; Alexander Stirling Calder, sculptor) (1921–24).
  • Residences

  • Charles Lang Freer House, 71 E. Ferry Street, Detroit, Michigan (1890). Eyre altered the carriage house in 1906, to install The Peacock Room by James McNeill Whistler (now in the Freer Gallery, Washington, DC). Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
  • Nathan Franklin Barrett house, "26, The Boulevard", Rochelle Park, New Rochelle, New York (1890). Barrett was the landscape architect and planner of the Rochelle Park community.
  • "Greyeres" (Ernest Albert mansion), 9 Manhattan Avenue, Rochelle Park, New Rochelle, New York (1896, demolished).
  • "Meadowcroft" (Theodore E. Conklin mansion), Southampton, Long Island, New York (1904). Lighting by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
  • E.S. Sands mansion, Southport, Connecticut (1905)
  • "Etowah" (George W. King house), 429 Mt. Vernon Ave, Marion, Ohio (1908). Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.
  • "Northcote" (Stephen Parrish house), Lang Road, Cornish, New Hampshire (1893). Located near the Cornish Art Colony, this became the home/studio of the client's son, the painter Maxfield Parrish
  • Other buildings

  • Detroit Club, 712 Cass Avenue, Detroit, Michigan (1891). Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
  • Newcomb College Memorial Chapel, 6th & Chestnut Streets, New Orleans, Louisiana (1894–95, demolished 1954). Stained glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
  • References

    Wilson Eyre Wikipedia