Monastery at Large

From the Notebook

  • Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home – Atlanta (1889)

    Bruce & Morgan. Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home (1889, unbuilt). Atlanta.

    The Background

    The following article was published in The Atlanta Constitution in December 1889 and discusses the proposed design for the Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home, prepared by Bruce & Morgan of Atlanta.

    Carrie Steele Logan (pictured here1) was “well known and highly respected”2 in both the white and Black communities of Atlanta in the late 19th century. Born into slavery in 1829,3 she worked for many years as an attendant in Atlanta’s passenger depot,4 5 where she reportedly became distressed by the “little army of street vagrants who ran around the depot entrance.”

    Steele ultimately quit her job, “impressed with the responsibility of rescuing the little tots that struggled for existence,” and according to the Constitution, “as she left the depot she led several homeless waifs to her home on Wheat street.”

    In 1887, Steele began raising money to build an orphanage for Black children, which the Constitution described as a “praiseworthy work,” opining that: “The home will do a vast amount of good in recovering from lives of vice and crime the little negroes who run around our streets ragged, friendless and homeless…”

    Note that in this article, Albert Howell, one of the orphanage’s early supporters, claimed that the home would “take the little negro waifs and make good servants of them.”

    Steele was a tenacious advocate for the project, pursuing every possible fundraising method. In 1888, she even published a book of anecdotes about her time working in Atlanta’s depot, titled Life and Adventures of Mrs. Carrie Steele, Stewardess Atlanta Depot, with proceeds funding the orphanage.6

    Lacking land for the project, in 1889, Steele petitioned the City of Atlanta,7 8which granted her a 99-year lease9 on a 4 to 5-acre parcel10 11 near the intersection of Fair Street and Flat Shoals Road (now the southeast corner of Memorial Drive SE and Holtzclaw Street SE).

    Location of Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home

    Steele reportedly “made many friends among the white people”,12 and it’s a testament to her reputation that the orphanage’s construction was funded by several of Atlanta’s wealthiest citizens, including Jonathan Norcross,13 who was, by all accounts, a miserly old asshole.

    In March 1890, The Atlanta Journal said of Steele’s fundraising efforts:

    “Almost all the prominent white people in the city have contributed something to the good cause, and to those who have not we desire to say that you could not contribute to a more laudable undertaking.”14

    Construction on the orphanage began in July 1890,15 but because it had to be built in stages as funding permitted, the project was completed in May 1892.16 However, the final structure wasn’t the one designed by Bruce & Morgan.

    The original design had apparently been dropped by May 1890, when Steele bought 30,000 bricks for the project17 18 — note that the plan described and illustrated here was for a wood-frame building.

    Architect unknown. Carrie Steele Orphans’ Home (1892). Atlanta.19

    The plain brick structure that was ultimately built for the orphanage appears to have had no designer — or at least, not a good one. Containing 13 rooms,20 the orphanage housed 36 children at its dedication,21 and by 1896, it sheltered 75 children between the ages of one and fifteen years old.22

    In 1894, Steele told a reporter from the Constitution:

    “If these were my own children I could not love them more than I do. They all look up to me as if I were their mother, and come to me with all their little troubles as if I always had a remedy for them. I have had a great many discouragements and trials, but when I look back over these years and see how the Lord has taken care of me and my children, I feel that I ought to be thankful.”23

    Steele died in November 1900 at the age of 61, two months after a debilitating stroke.24 Her funeral was reportedly attended by 3,000 people,25 with the Constitution reporting that “the church was filled to overflowing and about half of the audience was composed of whites.” She was buried in Oakland Cemetery, the final resting place of Atlanta’s most distinguished citizens.

    Steele’s husband managed the orphanage until he died in 1904,26 which continued operating under a succession of directors, notably Clara M. Pitts, who managed the home from 1919 to 1950.27

    In 1928, the orphanage left its original property on Fair Street and moved to the Pittsburgh neighborhood in southwest Atlanta.28 Later renamed the Carrie Steele-Pitts Home, the orphanage moved to Faiburn Road in west Atlanta in 1964,29 where it remains in operation as the oldest black orphanage in the United States.30

    For Negro Orphans.

    The Good Work Which Carrie Steele Has Done.

    The Home As It Will Appear When Finished
    — What a City Officer Has To Say About It — Other Notes of Interest.

    “That’s the best investment Atlanta has ever made.”

    Colonel Albert Howell was the speaker. As he made the remark he pointed to an architect’s drawing of the Carrie Steele Orphan home.

    “Yes,” said Colonel Howell, “that is one of the most sensible charities ever inaugurated, and to one woman belongs the credit for its inception and the good work that has already been done. Carrie Steele is a good woman, and I know she deserves every success in this life work of hers. For it is a life-work. It is two years now since the project was conceived by Carrie, or rather since she gave up her position at the carshed that she might devote her whole time to this home. She has labored honestly and earnestly for its success, and she expects to devote the rest of her life to it.”

    Colonel Howell has shown his faith by his works. It was through his influence as alderman that the lease on the four acres of city land, upon which the home will stand was extended from ten to ninety-nine years. And in all her efforts to secure city aid, Colonel Howell has been one of Carrie Steele’s most staunch supporters.

    “It is a good thing for Atlanta as well as the state at large–this orphans’ home,” he said yesterday. “For it is the intention of the people interested in the home to take the little negro waifs and make good servants of them. The education they receive will all be in the direction of practical usefulness.”

    The home will be located on the Flat Shoals road where Fair street will intersect it. This is about two and a half miles from the center of the city and is delightfully located.

    The building, which, when completed, will look like the accompanying cut, will be a frame structure built in the most substantial manner. The building when finished which will contain, on the first floor an office and room for matron, with two school rooms, chapel and large dining room, with kitchen and laundry rooms, for teaching kitchen work. The second floor will contain dormitories, bath rooms, and all modern conveniences, and in every way adapted to the purposes for which it is intended. The plans were prepared by Messrs. Bruce & Morgan, and preparations are being made for commencing the work at once.

    It is the intention of the projector to start with one wing, and use that for the purposes of the home. Then as the years go by and the home gets well started, the building will be completed.31

    References

    1. Illustration credit: “Training The Colored Children”. The Atlanta Constitution, June 7, 1896, p. 3. ↩︎
    2. “The Colored Orphans’ Home.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 9, 1889, p. 3. ↩︎
    3. Carrie Steele Logan: A ‘Mother’ to Atlanta’s Orphans | Atlanta History Center ↩︎
    4. ibid. ↩︎
    5. “Carrie Steele Gets Married.” The Atlanta Journal, February 16, 1889, p. 2. ↩︎
    6. “Carrie Steele’s Book.” The Weekly Telegraph (Macon, Georgia), March 6, 1888, p. 8. ↩︎
    7. “The City’s Finances.” The Atlanta Journal, January 21, 1889, p. 1. ↩︎
    8. “Local Law Makers.” The Atlanta Constitution, January 22, 1889, p. 5. ↩︎
    9. “The City Fathers”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 19, 1889, p. 3. ↩︎
    10. “The Carrie Steele Orphan Home.” The Atlanta Constitution, July 2, 1889, p. 8. ↩︎
    11. “Home For Colored Orphans.” The Atlanta Journal, May 9, 1890, p. 3. ↩︎
    12. “Carrie Steele Died Last Night”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 4, 1900, p. 7. ↩︎
    13. “The Atlanta Orphan Home.” The Atlanta Journal, February 13, 1890, p. 3. ↩︎
    14. “Atlanta Orphan Asylum.” The Atlanta Journal, March 12, 1890, p. 4. ↩︎
    15. “Foundations Laid”. The Atlanta Journal, July 4, 1890, p. 1. ↩︎
    16. “City Notes.” The Atlanta Constitution, May 2, 1892, p. 5. ↩︎
    17. “Home For Colored Orphans.” The Atlanta Journal, May 9, 1890, p. 3. ↩︎
    18. “The Good Work of Carrie Steele”. The Atlanta Constitution, May 10, 1890, p. 4. ↩︎
    19. “Training The Colored Children”. The Atlanta Constitution, June 7, 1896, p. 3. ↩︎
    20. “The Colored Orphans.” The Atlanta Journal, August 16, 1892, p. 5. ↩︎
    21. “The Colored Orphans’ Home.” The Atlanta Constitution, June 21, 1892, p. 10. ↩︎
    22. “Training The Colored Children”. The Atlanta Constitution, June 7, 1896, p. 3. ↩︎
    23. “Her Own Work.” The Atlanta Constitution, April 15, 1894, p. 23. ↩︎
    24. “Short Items Of Local Interest”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 7, 1900, p. 9. ↩︎
    25. “What The Negro Is Doing”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 11, 1900, p. 4. ↩︎
    26. “Josiah Logan, Well-Known Negro, Died Tuesday”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 16, 1904. ↩︎
    27. Scott, Stanley S. “Groundbreaking Exercises For Children’s Home Sunday”. Atlanta Daily World, February 15, 1964, p. 7. ↩︎
    28. “New Home for Carrie Steele Colored Orphanage To Be Dedicated Wednesday”. The Atlanta Constitution, May 27, 1928, p. 19 A. ↩︎
    29. Scott, Stanley S. “Groundbreaking Exercises For Children’s Home Sunday”. Atlanta Daily World, February 15, 1964, p. 7. ↩︎
    30. Carrie Steele Logan: A ‘Mother’ to Atlanta’s Orphans | Atlanta History Center ↩︎
    31. “For Negro Orphans.” The Atlanta Constitution, December 1, 1889, p. 15. ↩︎

  • Relic Signs: Pink Motel (1957) – Cherokee, North Carolina

    Pink Motel (1957). 1306 Tsali Boulevard, Cherokee, North Carolina.

    Nothing makes a night better than pink.

    This sign in Cherokee, North Carolina, debuted at the Pink Motel’s opening in 1957. And if you’re wondering about the origin of the name, a newspaper report from the time helpfully explained:

    If you are a motel operator, supplying your own linen, name-tagged and all, you will often get back from the laundry the linen of some other operator. So, if you have pink bed sheets and towels, how’s anyone but a colorblind person going to get your linens mixed-up with that of white-linen folks?

    So, that’s how the name “Pink Motel” started. It was only logical to carry the pink idea still further until it was “done up pink.” The outside of the Pink Motel is painted pink. The walls, furniture, vertical venetian blinds, the bathroom tile, the furnishings…even the soap…are all pink.1

    References

    1. “20-Unit Pink Motel At Cherokee Is Original Color Scheme Idea”. Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, North Carolina), July 14, 1957, p. B11. ↩︎

  • Perchance to Dream

    The venue was about as off-Broadway as it gets — a tiny little theater with folding chairs set up a few feet from the stage.

    The infamous sex scene finally came, with the two leads spooning together in a cramped iron bed post-coitus.

    A few women in the audience provided the performative gasps, followed by a round of suppressed nervous laughs.

    The actor who had no problem with nudity was completely naked, his body awkwardly positioned at such an angle that we got a full view of his taint and baby dick — shaved, of course, with that awful plucked-chicken look that straight men think makes them look bigger.

    You know he was proud of himself for having made such a brave artistic choice.

    The other actor had tight white briefs on, carefully pulled down so that we saw a portion of his neatly trimmed bush and the base of his shaft, which wasn’t remarkable either, but still bigger than the other guy.

    Both actors were obviously heterosexual: their body language was as stiff as the dialogue. Even the way they shared the oversized prop cigarette was unconvincing.

    The play was about the forbidden love between two World War I servicemen, described in the program as an “unflinchingly raw portrayal that examines accepted truths and challenges assumptions.” That was my first clue that it was pretentious and dull.

    As the actors droned on together, my mind drifted — what if one of them is trying to suppress a fart right now?

    If either of the guys let one rip on stage, it’d be worth the price of the ticket.

  • Hall County Courthouse (1938) – Gainesville, Georgia

    Daniel & Beutell. Hall County Courthouse (1938). Gainesville, Georgia.1 2 3 4 5

    This stark but stately county courthouse in Gainesville, Georgia, owes its existence to the United States federal government.

    Built at the height of the Great Depression, the structure is primarily in the Classical Moderne style, with some Beaux-Arts ornamentation, and was designed by Daniel & Beutell of Atlanta.

    Construction began three months after an April 1936 tornado that destroyed much of the city’s business district, including the former courthouse.

    Pediment on the Hall County Courthouse

    The building was a quintessential New Deal project: funded by the Public Works Administration and built by workers from the similarly-named Works Progress Administration.

    When the courthouse was completed in March 1938, it was dedicated in a gala ceremony attended by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Not shabby.

    Cornice and bas-relief ornamentation on the Hall County Courthouse
    Clock tower on the Hall County Courthouse

    References

    1. “Gainesville Gets $40,000 RFC Loan For Civic Center”. The Atlanta Journal, June 12, 1936, p. 13. ↩︎
    2. “PWA Approves $126,000 Grant For New Hall County Courthouse”. The Atlanta Journal, July 9, 1936, p. 9. ↩︎
    3. “PWA Soon To Launch Gainesville Building”. The Atlanta Constitution, July 10, 1936, p. 10. ↩︎
    4. “More Than 50,000 To Hear Roosevelt At Gainesville Wednesday”. The Atlanta Journal, March 22, 1938, p. 1. ↩︎
    5. “Georgia Hails President Roosevelt at Mighty Celebration in New Gainesville”. The Atlanta Journal, March 23, 1938, p. 12. ↩︎

  • No Name

    “He is loved. He will be greatly missed.”

    Or so his obituary said from not that long ago.

    He may have been loved, but they sold his books awfully quick — I picked this one up on eBay a few years back.

    He was an engineer and traveled the world, apparently.

    Reading between the lines of the obituary and judging by this book, I’d say he was gay, too:

    “Deeply loved by his nieces and nephews,” appreciated art, split his time between two cities, etc.

    We’re not stupid.

    He neatly wrote his name on the inside cover of the book.

    It has to be the same guy — the spelling is too unique.

    I’m throwing the book away now, ripping it into shreds after I scan the pictures.

    Into the earth the pages will go,

    As the previous owner already has,

    And as I will one day, too.

    Why bother leaving my name?

  • One World Trade Center (2014) – New York

    SOM. One World Trade Center (2014). New York.1

    References

    1. One World Trade Center – SOM ↩︎

  • True Beauty

    She was a selfish, miserable cunt, despised by everyone who knew her. She was an influencer.

    She overdosed — excuse me, passed unexpectedly — on a combination of booze and antidepressants, only days after a fresh round of fillers.

    For her final selfie, she was posed in a bikini, pouting with inflated duck lips, her cheeks hollowed out from black-market Ozempic, showing off her latest pair of tits.

    With her chemically peeled skin and a half-inch of makeup, she looked like a prepubescent alien — some dysmorphic spawn from a dystopian nightmare.

    When they livestreamed the funeral, one of her followers typed: “OMG, she’s such a beautiful corpse”, before scrolling absently to another video.

    And that’s the only thing that matters in life, right?

  • Park Center (2021) – Dunwoody, Georgia

    Cooper Carry. Park Center Two (2020). Dunwoody, Georgia.1
    Cooper Carry. Park Center One (2016). Dunwoody, Georgia.2 3
    Cooper Carry. Park Center Two (2020) and Park Center Three (2021). Dunwoody, Georgia.

    References

    1. Dunwoody Planning Commission recommends mixed-use development at Park Center ↩︎
    2. Park Center One by Cooper Carry – Architizer ↩︎
    3. Park Center One by Cooper Carry ↩︎

  • “All the Girls Give ‘Em Up” (1898)

    The Background

    The following article was published in The Looking Glass on January 22, 1898, and provides what it describes as “an appalling list of openly avowed Atlanta bachelors” at the time, including G.L. Norrman (1848-1909).

    The Looking Glass was a short-lived but notorious tabloid newspaper published weekly in Atlanta from 1895 to 1898, and it’s safe to say that pretty much everyone in the city read it, even if they’d never admit to it.

    Chock-full of photographs, oversized illustrations, and comic sketches, The Looking Glass was a visual feast compared to the drab pages of The Atlanta Constution and The Atlanta Journal, but what made made the publication so sensational was that it regularly dished on the lurid exploits of what it referred to as “Atlanta’s 400” — a sarcastic swipe at the city’s wealthiest citizens, inspired by the Four Hundred of New York.

    The members of Atlanta society who were regularly fawned over in the pages of the Constitution and the Journal were mercilessly mocked in The Looking Glass, with irresistible blind items that laid bare their infidelity, divorces, drug and alcohol addictions, and bankruptcies — among other social embarrassments.

    Absolutely no one who was anyone in Atlanta was spared byThe Looking Glass, which scandalously pushed against every conceivable social taboo of the time — it even had an illustration of a nude woman on its banner.

    A few random excerpts will give you an idea of why the newspaper was so popular:

    “The interesting rumor that a naked man was in the habit of parading the neighborhood of Grant Park has caused great excitement in the vicinity…”1

    “There is a certain high building in Atlanta, the roof of which furnishes an excellent coigne of vantage from which to survey the surrounding country. It is reached–the roof, I mean–by a ladder like flight of stairs leading up from a loft, and it is quite a common thing for lady visitors to repair thither to enjoy the superb view. The offices on the several floors of the building contain a good many young men who are no better than young men usually are, and some of them lately made the discovery that the fair visitors, ascending and descending, like the angels in Jacob’s dream, formed a series of living pictures quite eclipsing anything ever seen on the stage. One of the discoverers owns a hand camera, and with the aid of this instrument he has perpetuated the delectable vision in a number of different views”2

    “One of the numerous divorce cases which will be heard at the ensuing term of the Superior Court will in all probability develop a little story which contains about as many elements of the dramatic as are usually to be found in a single passage of every-day life… Some time ago the husband began to suspect (or so he claims) that his wife was taking more interest than she should in a certain friend of the family who was a frequent visitor at the domestic hearth… he proceeded to lay a trap for his friend and his spouse…”3

    “That there is a prejudice against bloomers is not to be denied, but The Looking Glass begs to doubt whether it is a puritanical prejudice. The objection is not ethical it is aesthetic. Bloomers are unpopular and generally reviled, not because they are immoral, but because they are ugly. They are a clumsy and ineffectual compromise between the graceful, comfortable and artistic knickerbockers and the flapping skirt, and alike all compromises, reproduce the bad points of both extremes, without their redeeming qualities.

    “A woman may be as shapely as Venus and as graceful as a fawn, but nothing will prevent her from looking like a guy the moment she thrusts her legs into a pair of meal sacks. A very loose nether garment, gathered in at the ankles, and superabundantly wide at the hips, is inherently grotesque, and neither youth nor beauty can save it from provoking a smile.”4

    That’s right, your ancestors were whores and perverts, too.

    Illustration from The Looking Glass5

    Needless to say, the tone of the following article is quite tongue-in-cheek, and the pseudonymous writer, a.k.a. “The Spinster”, writes about the Atlanta “men who have long been given up as hopeless by even the most persistent of the managing mammas.”

    Many of the “confirmed bachelors” listed here are also named in a somewhat similar article published in the Constitution two years earlier (see “Atlanta’s Attractive Prizes for Leap Year Girls“), and I suspect the writer of each was the same.

    But of course, The Looking Glass was much more provocative, and this article may have been at least a partial outing of some of the city’s closeted gay men at the time — God knows Atlanta is still full of them.

    Certainly, some of the phrasing here appears to be euphemistic: Jim Nutting is described as the most “impregnable man in bachelordom”, Hugh Boyd Adams is compared to an “old maid”, and Oscar Brown is said to be “one of the most incorrigible of the entire lot”.

    As always, history provokes more questions than it provides answers.

    Illustration from The Looking Glass6

    ALL THE GIRLS GIVE ‘EM UP.

    Atlanta’s Brigade of Confirmed Bachelors, Young and Old.

    Men Who Are Useful in Society, but Who Have Long Since Ceased to Be an Object of Solicitude on the Part of Designing Mammas–An Interesting Roster.

    I have noticed that the LOOKING GLASS has from time to time commented on the scarcity of marriages in Atlanta society and has suggested several reasons why this state of affairs exists. Chief among then, if I remember correctly, was the assertion that a majority of our young men look askance at matrimony because they are too poor to properly maintain a wife.

    So far as this theory goes it is correct, but it does not entirely cover the ground. I have studied the situation carefully and have come to the conclusion that the idea of matrimony, aside from the necessary additional expense which it entails, is becoming more and more distasteful to society men. Each year the free-to-come-and-go life of the clubs absorbs more and more of our really eligible bachelors, and they are irreclaimably lost so far as the girls and their mammas are concerned.

    One has only to look at the appalling list of openly avowed Atlanta bachelors–men who have long been given up as hopeless by even the most persistent of the managing mammas–to realize that I am right. Many of these men are entirely eligible, so far as money, good looks and intellect are concerned, but they are regarded as absolutely incorrigible. They dance attendance on the debutantes of each succeeding season, go to all the different functions and eat the dinners of anxious mammas–but they don’t marry. Neither does anyone expect them to marry; they have been in the swim for years and occupy a distinct place which they have made for themselves. However, such men are extremely useful members of society; they can always be depended upon to accept an invitation or keep an engagement, and they invariably put themselves out to make the debutantes have a good time.

    Sam Hall was a typical specimen of the class of which I am speaking. He was seen everywhere, knew every one worth knowing, was an undoubted authority on matters of social import, and led a cotillion gracefully. But who ever seriously thought Sam would marry?

    Another confirmed bachelor who has departed from our midst, and who has seen the alternate hope and despair of scores of girls, is Tom Paine. For a number of years he was regarded more or less seriously, and if half I hear is true, he had some very narrow escapes. But he was eventually given up as an irreclaimable, and all hopes of leading him to the altar were abandoned.

    At present Jim Nutting enjoys the distinction of being the most impregnable man in bachelordom. Jim has been in society since the time when man’s memory runneth not to the contrary. He has seen scores of his old flames led to the alter, and even assisted in the capacity of best man; on many of these occasions he has stood godfather to countless infants, but if he ever allowed the idea of matrimony to cross his mind, he dismissed it immediately.

    Bob Shedden has caused many a heart to beat high in anticipation of the momentous question, but the question was like the letter in the popular ballad–it never came.

    Hugh Boyd Adams is another man who has taken the veil, and who would not exchange his home at the club for any consideration. He is as punctilious about his social obligations as an old maid, but if you suggested matrimony to him he would stamped like an untamed broncho at the approach of an express-train.

    Godfrey L. Norrman is thoroughly wedded to his books and his artistic pursuits, and never gives marriage a second thought–at least, so he says.

    Daniel Rountree has all but dropped out of society, and is applying himself to his profession to the exclusion of all other matters. He is young, rich and good-looking, but he is apt to die in single blessedness.

    George Stearns is still young, but he is fast falling in line with the other confirmed bachelors and it is pretty safe to say that he will never marry.

    Gordon Kiser is one of the few ideal society men we have left. He has made society a study, and devotes a good deal of time to it, but he is generally regarded as not at all likely to exchange his present contented existence for one beset with doubts and fears. The girls have counted him out of the running.

    There was a time when John Ryan was the subject of a good deal of solicitation among enterprising mothers, but they have long since given up trying to hook him and have turned their attention to other directions.

    Lieutenant Oscar Brown is an enthusiastic clubman and popular diner-out, but he is also one of the most incorrigible of the entire lot.

    Our other confirmed bachelors might be catalogued thus: Harry English, Frank Orme, Charley Ryan, Robert Ryan, John J. Eagan, Fred J. Paxon, Lucius McClesky, Will Black, Peter Grant, Jack Slaton, Isham Daniel, Jim McKeldin, Reuben Hayden, Walter Kirkpatrick and Henderson Hallman.

    The Spinster.7

    References

    1. The Looking Glass (Atlanta), May 15, 1897, p. 9. ↩︎
    2. The Looking Glass (Atlanta), July 8, 1895, p. 9. ↩︎
    3. The Looking Glass (Atlanta), January 30, 1897, p. 8. ↩︎
    4. The Looking Glass (Atlanta), June 29, 1895. ↩︎
    5. The Looking Glass (Atlanta), February 27, 1897, p. 1. ↩︎
    6. “The Bicycle Craze Among Atlanta’s 400.” The Looking Glass (Atlanta), July 13, 1895. ↩︎
    7. “All the Girls Give ‘Em Up”. The Looking Glass (Atlanta), January 22, 1898, pp. 2-3. ↩︎

  • Robert Wilson Patterson Residence (1903) – Washington, D.C.

    Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White. Robert Wilson Patterson Residence (1903). Washington, D.C.

    The only thing that makes this home’s exterior truly interesting is its unique butterfly shape, designed to conform to its site overlooking Washington D.C.’s Dupont Circle.

    Otherwise, it’s fairly standard for Stanford White’s later work, with an overwrought mishmash of Renaissance-inspired details that appears fitful and fussy, akin to the cluttered walls of an old art gallery. However, the marble and limestone construction is quite exquisite on close observation.

    White claimed the design had a “light and rather joyous character”.1 I’m not sure about joyous, but I can go along with light, as the abundance of windows in the structure gives it an airy feel, particularly when the sun hits all five sides of the facade.

    Ornamentation on the Robert Wilson Patterson Residence

    The home was built at the same time as White’s partner, Charles McKim, was designing the nearby East Wing of the White House, which…is no longer with us.

    The Patterson Mansion is currently occupied by short-term rental units, and I hope to stay in one at some point in the future — preferably when D.C. is no longer occupied by madness. God knows when that may be.

    Third-floor balcony on the Robert Wilson Patterson Residence

    References

    1. White, Samuel G. The Houses of McKim, Mead & White. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. (1998), p. 212. ↩︎