Richard Morris Hunt - References:

Architect, born in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA. The first American admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris (1846), he worked with Hector Martin Lefuel on the Pavillion de la Bibliothèque of the Louvre (1854–5). He opened a practice (1855) and an atelier in New York, training among others Frank Furness and George B Post. An eclectic stylist, he designed many houses and university and public buildings in New York, including the Presbyterian Hospital (1872), the Tribune Building (1873), and the Lenox Library (1877). After the 1880s he designed luxurious mansions by which he is best remembered, among them Marble House (1892) and The Breakers (1895), Newport, RI, and the 225-room Biltmore House Asheville, NC (1895), the last of several Vanderbilt family commissions. A founder and third president of the American Institute of Architects (1888–91), he is called the ‘dean of American architecture’ for advancing the education and professional standards of architects.

For other persons named Richard Hunt, see Richard Hunt (disambiguation).

Richard Morris Hunt (October 31, 1827, Brattleboro, Vermont - 1895) preeminent figure in the history of American architecture. Richard Morris Hunt was the brother of the Boston painter William Morris Hunt, and the photographer and lawyer Leavitt Hunt.

In 1846 Hunt was the first American architect to attend the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and was regarded well enough to supervise work on the Louvre under Napoleon III. After his return in 1855, he founded the first American architectural school at his Tenth Street Studio (beginning with only four students), co-founded the American Institute of Architects and became its President in 1888, brought the first apartment building to Manhattan in a burst of scandal, and set a new ostentatious style of grand houses for the social elite and the eccentric, competitive new millionaires of the Gilded Age.

Hunt's greatest influence is his insistence that architects be treated, and paid, as legitimate and respected professionals equivalent to doctors and lawyers.

Despite his extensive social connections in Newport among the richest Americans of his generation, Hunt was widely admired for his energy and good humor.

Hunt designed New York's Tribune Building, one of the earliest with an elevator, in 1873.

Today, Hunt's handiwork can be seen on the Pedestal of the Statue of Liberty and on the facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Many of Hunt's New York houses have been destroyed.

Hunt often employed sculptor Karl Bitter to enrich his designs. Griswold House, Newport, RI 1863-1864 Henry Marquand House, NYC, 1881-84 James Pinchot House, "Grey Towers," Milford, Pennsylvania 1884-86 William Borden House, Chicago, Illinois, 1884-89 Ogden Mills House, Fifth Avenue, NYC, 1885-87 Archibald Rogers House, Hyde Park New York, 1886-89 William Kissam Vanderbilt House, "Marble House," Newport, Rhode Island, 1888-92 Ogden Goelet House, "Ochre Court", Newport, Rhode Island, 1888-93 Oliver Belmont House, "Belcourt Castle", Newport, Rhode Island, 1891 Elbridge Gerry House, NYC, 1891-94 Newport, Rhode Island, John Jacob Astor IV House, Fifth Avenue, NYC, 1891-95 Dorsheimer-Busk House, Newport, Rhode Island, 1890-93 George Washington Vanderbilt House, "Biltmore Estate", Asheville, North Carolina, 1890- Cornelius Vanderbilt II house, "The Breakers", Newport, Rhode Island, 1892-95

References:

Baker, Paul, Richard Morris Hunt, MIT Press, 1980 Stein, Susan Editor, The Architecture of Richard Morris Hunt , University of Chicago Press, 1986 Kvaran.