Willis Franklin Denny II (1874-1905), professionally known as W.F. Denny, was an architect who practiced in Atlanta and the Southeastern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Denny was born and raised in Louisville, Georgia1 (pronounced Lewis-ville), and studied architecture at Cornell University2 in New York. Unlike most Atlanta architects, Denny had actual talent. Like so many Atlanta architects, however, Denny died tragically — at the age of 31, following a “severe attack of pneumonia”.3
Although his brief career lasted less than 10 years, Denny was prolific. His surviving projects can be found across Georgia, with at least one work outside the state: the Thiesen Building in Pensacola, Florida, which was primarily designed by Bruce & Morgan,45 although it appears Denny contributed to the design.6
Seven of Denny’s works still exist in Louisville, Georgia, includingtheAbbot Residence7 (pictured above) on Mulberry Street.
The Abbots were the ruling family of Louisville at the time, and their name is still found on every other building in the town. Denny remade the antebellum Abbot residence with the fine Neoclassical design seen today, although a definitive date for the project is elusive.
My best guess is that the Abbot house was renovated circa 1902, since Denny used the same design for the Fleming duBignon Residence(demolished, pictured below) in Atlanta, built on the corner of Peachtree and 14th Streets in 1902.891011
So, which came first: the Abbot design or the duBignon design? That’s a mystery yet to be solved.
W.F. Denny. Fleming duBignon Residence (1902). Atlanta.Photograph from a postcard sent on March 2, 1909.
George P. Humphries. Joel Chandler Harris Residence, “The Wren’s Nest” (1884). West End, Atlanta.123Looking at The Wren’s Nest from the northeastSecond floor and dormer on The Wren’s NestPost, brackets, and latticework on the front porch of The Wren’s NestOpen pediment on front porch of The Wren’s NestLooking at The Wren’s Nest from the northwestFretwork rails and latticework on the front porch of The Wren’s NestStained-glass window on the west elevation of The Wren’s NestFish-scale shingles and chimney on the second floor of The Wren’s Nest
References
Bastedo, Mrs. Charles Wesley. “Early Architect”. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine, February 10, 1974, p. 5. ↩︎
“Building Notes.” The Atlanta Constitution, July 12, 1884, p. 7. ↩︎
“West End Notes.” The Atlanta Constitution, November 3, 1884, p. 7. ↩︎
The following article was originally published in the May 1893 edition of The Southern Architect, and was written by Edmund George Lind (1829-1909), professionally known as E.G. Lind, a British-born architect who spent most of his life and career in Baltimore, but practiced in Atlanta from 1883 to 1893.
Here, Lind offered his ideas for the prevention of building fires, a chief concern for both architects and the general public in the late 19th century, when dangerous wood-burning fireplaces were the primary method of heating, and deadly fires were tragically common.
Architects of the era were always eager to employ “fireproof” design solutions, and Lind specifically recommended the use of terra cotta flue liners in chimneys. Flue liners are now considered essential for fire prevention, yet as Lind noted, they were not in common use at the time, and would not be widely adopted until mandated by national building codes in the 20th century.
In early 1890s Atlanta, when construction was almost entirely unregulated, the city’s leading architects frequently called for greater government oversight of the building process, due in large part to fire safety concerns. In 1890, Thomas H. Morgan, a partner of the architectural firm Bruce & Morgan, complained to a reporter of The Atlanta Constitution:
“Why take the matter of defective flues. Chief Joyner [W.R. “Cap” Joyner, Atlanta’s first fire chief] reports that last year forty-two of the fires were caused by defective flues, and the loss was $18,000. This sort of thing would be stopped if we had the right kind of building law. There has hardly been a board of building inspectors in the last five years that has not recommended to the council some sort of building law, but none was ever adopted and the thing goes on in this careless fashion. Time and again in my work of supervision I have had to make them take joists out of chimneys.”1
In the same news article, another Atlanta architect, G.L. Norrman, offered his own design solution for the construction of safer chimneys:
“There should always be eight inches of brick around flues where the brick touches the woodwork. It takes more brick, but it is the only safe way to build a chimney, and I always put it in the specifications. Architects, as a rule, do not build chimneys large enough. Usually they only put four inches of brick between a flue and woodwork. That is not sufficient.”1
In this article, Lind recommended that the local government hire a ramoneur to examine and clean every chimney in the city on an annual basis. Appealing to Atlanta’s pathological need to compare itself to other municipalities, Lind noted: “The plan is in operation in other cities, and Atlanta cannot well afford to be ‘out of the swim.’”
The city finally hired its first real building inspector in 1895 and began issuing construction permits that same year; it did not, however, hire a chimney inspector.
Protection Against Fire
It is worthy of remark that more fires occur at the commencement and close of the cold winter months than at any other period of the year. This may be accounted for from the fact that the accumulated soot of the preceding winter, having been driven by wind and rain into corners and crevices of the chimney flue conveniently left by the bricklayer, as if “on mischief bent,” readily takes fire upon the first warming up, ending ofttimes in widespread conflagration.
A clean chimney flue would obviate all this, but how to clean it is the question.
It is perhaps not commonly known that zinc chips or scraps of zinc plate burned in a stove will readily cleanse the stove-pipe of all accumulated soot. The same cleansing process might be applied to ordinary fireplaces, but in the absence of all such precautionary measures, and as a valuable auxiliary, I would suggest the creation of a new officer to our city staff – that of chimney sweeper, or “Ramoneur,” which sounds better whose duty it shall be to examine every house and public building in the city during the summer months, and have each chimney flue properly swept and cleansed at a charge to the owner or tenant of say fifteen or twenty-five cents for each flue, the soot to be removed by the operator and used as a fertilizer on the neighboring farm lands, thus preventing fire consumption on the one hand and raising food for man’s consumption on the other.
This plan is in operation in other cities, and Atlanta cannot well afford to be “out of the swim.”
The sweeping can be readily effected by a round brush of whalebone or split rattan fitted to a bamboo rod three or four feet in length furnished with a screw joint, to which other rods may be attached, thus gradually forcing the brush up the whole length of the flue, first enclosing the fireplace opening after adding the second length of rod by means of close fitting canvas, in the center of which is a small hole for passing in the different sections of rod and operating the brush.
When the top of the chimney is reached, which may be readily ascertained by the Ramoneur or his assistant watching outside, by working the brush well around the flue all loose soot will be detached and the brush may be gradually lowered, disjointed and packed away for future use. The soot brought down to be put into close canvas sack and removed from the premises with little or no inconvenience to the tenant.
In some cities a wire brush is used, weighted with lead or iron, and let down from the top of the flue, instead of starting at the bottom as here recommended, but the great objection to this method is the roughness of the apparatus, which frequently detaches mortar from the sides of the flues, and opens the way for future mischief by exposing defective joints. In this connection we would remark that the best shape for all flues is a circle, and the best material for building them is vitrified clay or terra-cotta. These pipes may be made without collars or socks, should be glazed on the inside, and as they are put in place and enclosed with the brickwork they can be protected from falling mortar by a wooden mandrel or covered core, which may be removed as each fresh joint of pipe is fitted and then replaced.
The use of terra-cotta pipe for smoke flues is no new thing. The writer, in common with many other architects, has availed himself of them for years, and it would be well if their adoption was as common as the reverse is now the case. Little or no soot can cling to a glazed surface, and the joints are so few – less than one-eighth the number in a brick flue – that risk of fire from defective work, as well as the certainty of avoiding a smoky chimney would be almost obliterated.
E.G.L.
References
“Eight Millions More”, The Atlanta Constitution, April 13, 1890, p. 7.
The following text is the transcript of a presentation given at the 1884 convention of the American Institute of Architects by Edmund George Lind (1829-1909), professionally known as E.G. Lind, a British-born architect who spent most of his life and career in Baltimore, but practiced in Atlanta from 1883 to 1893.
Although his work in Atlanta and the Southeast in the 1880s and 1890s was largely unremarkable, Lind was by all accounts a well-respected architect who sought to elevate the status of the entire profession, and before 1885, he was the only architect in Atlanta who was a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
Lind read the following paper on October 21, 1884, at the annual convention of the AIA, held in Nashville, Tennessee. The thesis has little to do with architecture, tenuously connecting the subjects of color and music in a meandering and mystical fashion that was popular in the late 19th century [G.L. Norrman‘s Architecture as Illustrative of Religious Belief is another prime example], and Lind makes numerous references to songs and music that are likely unfamiliar to modern readers.
Lind further explored the topic of color in his 1892 article“Coloring of Rooms“, and in 1893, he wrote a paper entitled “A Few Words About Acoustics“, in which he stated that he designed music halls and concert rooms in dimensions based on the number 7. It’s in this paper, however, that Lind first explains his interest in the number 7, which he later referred to as “the symbol of perfection and completeness”.
The Harmony Between Color and Music
By E.G. Lind, F.A.I.A., Baltimore.
The harmony existing between color and music is so remarkable that it cannot fail to interest all who will give the subject a little attention, and the more it is investigated the more we shall be struck with its various correlations.
The first quality noticeable, as harmonizing these two sciences, is the numeral one of 7. There being that number of natural colors, and the same of natural sounds. And in this connection it may be proper to direct attention for one moment to the pregnant use of this number throughout the history of the world. In the earliest writings with which we are familiar, the Holy Scriptures, it occupies a very conspicuous position, beginning with a hallowing of a seventh day as a Sabbath of rest upon earth, and ending in the pouring out of the seven vials of wrath upon the people. Pharaoh, you know, dreamed of and experienced a seven years of plenty and seven of famine, Naaman was directed to wash seven times in the river Jordan that he might be cleansed of his leprosy. Joshua besieged Jericho with seven Priests sounding seven trumpets, as during seven days they marched seven times round the walls of the doomed city. The great feast of the Jews was held seven days, commencing on the seventh day of the seven month of the seventh year. And many other instances might be cited where this particular number is alluded to. Our very existence seems to be in some mysterious way connected with it, for on the seventh day, the pulse of humanity beats slower and feebler than on the other six days. Diseases change for better or worse on the seventh day, and we are told that every seventh year our whole bodily system is renewed. Several works have been written bearing upon this special subject, and it is quite possible that 7 may be a complete and perfect number in some way governing and pervading all natural science, for it is not an unreasonable presumption that the Creator worked upon some definite plan which may form the key to the whole design.
To proceed with our analogy [diagram exhibited of solar spectrum and colored side of music].
In the solar spectrum we have seven colors. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, which we call the natural colors. In music we have seven sounds, do, re, me, fa, sol, la, and si [ti], which we term natural sounds. To form a complete chromatic scale of sound, we need five other notes, viz: do sharp, re sharp, fa sharp, sol sharp and la sharp, so that the seven natural sounds are increased to twelve. A correlation will be found in the color scale, as red merges into orange, orange into yellow, green into blue, blue into indigo and indigo into violet, so that we have complete and correspondingly harmonious chromatic scales both of music and color.
The natural scale of do in music has been so named because the human voice is almost universally tuned in that key, and the first note of that scale, do, gives out two hundred and forty vibrations to convey the impression of that particular sound to the ear.
In the next note, re, these vibrations are increased to two hundred and seventy, and so as we ascend the scale till the seventh note, si, is reached, when four hundred and fifty distinct vibrations are recorded. In short, the higher and more distant the note, the greater number of vibrations necessary to produce it.
In color we find an analogy in the fact that the sensation of red is imparted to the eye by a certain number of vibrations of light, the second color, orange, by an increasing number of vibrations, and so on ascending the scale. These vibrations bearing the same harmonious correlation with reference to sound, although not the same in actual numbers, and as in sound the deeper tones are the near ones, so in color the warmer tints composed of red are made use of by artists to depict nearness and the colder greys to obtain distant effects, thus blindly observing a natural law which we have endeavored to make clear in the diagrams presented, a law, too, entirely in harmony with the law of sound.
We have previously stated that there are seven natural colors in the solar spectrum, but in reality there are only three; red, yellow and blue, which are known as the primary colors, the other four being merely combinations of the former. In our colored scale of music it will be seen that the chord do, mi, sol is formed by these three primary colors, and as the three sounds, or chord notes, form a key to the musical composition, so the three colors are the base and foundation for the whole system of color. Red and yellow producing orange; yellow and blue, green; and blue and red, indigo and violet. As well-known the three primaries commingled make black, and if the whole solar spectrum be rotated rapidly white light is produced.
The two sciences being so much in accord, as we have shown, it might be presumed that what would please the ear would please the eye. If, therefore, a musical instrument should be so constructed that when played upon colored sounds would be produced, then we might expect lively music to produce bright colors; said tunes subdued and secondary colors, and doleful sounds, colors of a dull and sombre hue. Nay, even the national airs of a particular country might partake of the peculiar characteristics of its people. [These different characteristics illustrated by colored diagrams of various tunes, “Yankee Doodle”, “John Anderson, My Jo”, “Bethany”, “Windham”, etc., which fully sustained the foregoing theory, and especially so in the colored tune of “Auld Lang Syne”, which bore a remarkable resemblance to a Scotch plaid.]
In preparing the various colored diagrams illustrating this paper, it was found that a piece of music colored in accordance with the rules of color could be successfully harmonized by a person wholly unacquainted with music, so long as he understood the said rules of color, for he would only have to apply notes with primary colors in opposition to primary colors and secondary colors to secondary, and he would produced as perfectly harmonized a piece of music as if he had been fully acquainted with thorough bass.
As a country advances in civilization so does it advance artistic taste, it is no longer satisfied with the crude colors and tones of a ruder age, it seeks a higher plane, more complex, refined and intellectual. The primary colors and sounds are supplemented by others more complicated and aesthetic; the possibilities of each science is pushed to the extreme, every combination of tone and semi-tone in music and every shade and tint in color is made subservient to higher demands, and pleasures are imparted which could not possibly have been realized in the earlier stages of civilization.
[Diagram in illustration “Sullivan‘s Lost Chord“.]
In short, so allied are the sciences of color and music that it is possible to give a color to every sound and a sound to every color. All the intonations of the human voice can be easily depicted in color as on a violin, there is no limit to either, and symphonies in red and green, and idyls in blue and yellow are nearer of attainment than artists ever dreamed of or hoped for. [Diagram exhibited of a “Child’s Wail” and “Lawyer’s Speech”.]
Curious to trace the gradual development of color and music from the earliest to the present times. We examined a great number of examples of color, with the following results: Adhering to the harmonic number, 7, we selected that number of examples from many, and found that in the savage tribes the only colors known and used were red, yellow, white and black. The Egyptians added blue and green to this list, and so on upward through the Greek, Pompeian, Arabian, Middle Age and Renaissance periods there was a gradual accession of color, till in our own day we absorb all the colors of the spectrum and many more.
Of the progress of musical sounds we have fewer opportunities for acquiring information. We know that among savage tribes few colors and sounds prevail, and these too of the most primitive characters. It is fair to assume color and music have kept on with equal step, hand in hand, neither in advance of the other so will they continue through the ages to the end, enobling and refining each other.
One word for our own art. As “frozen music,” architecture is fairly entitled to a place beside her two lovely sisters; we have then the great civilizers of the world, architecture, music and painting, these three.
In conclusion, it may be asked in relation this “Cui bono?” What good will it do? We cannot tell; we think it possible that these harmonies may be so utilized as to be productive of much good, if by means of seeing these colored notes the deaf mute can be made to understand something of the nature of sound, or if by hearing them a blind person can be given to understand something of the nature of color, a great good will have been accomplished; a new field will have been opened and new pleasures added to the few enjoyed, by two classes of suffering humanity whose afflictions naturally excite the kindly sympathy of all.
Starrett & van Vleck with Hentz, Reid & Adler. Davison-Paxon-Stokes Department Store (1927). Atlanta.12Cornice on the Davison-Paxon-Stokes Department StoreLooking up at the east facade of the Davison-Paxon-Stokes Department StoreSecond-floor windowson the east facade of the Davison-Paxon-Stokes Department StoreSouth elevation of the Davison-Paxon-Stokes Department Store
References
“$7,000,000 Department Store, Theater, Garage To Be Built By Candler Interests On Peachtree”. The Atlanta Journal, March 8, 1925, p. 1. ↩︎
“Brief Formal Ceremony Held As Davison-Paxon’s Great New Store Opens”. The Atlanta Journal, March 21, 1927, p. 1. ↩︎
Following G.L. Norrman‘s public airing of grievances [read the first, second, and third letters], the Atlanta school board discovered there wasn’t enough money to begin construction on the boys’ high school as planned.
The mayor urged the board to delay the school’s construction until the following year, but the board insisted on laying the building’s foundation, with plans to resume construction when funds were available.1
In recounting the events, The Atlanta Constitution said “many declared that Mr. Norrman had won his fight”, and recalled his earlier letters, stating that “some very interesting epithets were scattered around.”2
Norrman apparently disliked the insinuation and wrote “A Pointed and Picquant Card”, which was published on October 28, 1894.
Norrman’s remarks:
Atlanta, Ga. October 27, 1894
Editor Constitution—
“The manner of alluding to my name in Friday’s issue ofThe Constitution, I think is apt to be misleading, in regard to my attitude to the board of education. I have the highest respect for the board as a whole. Most, if not all, of its members are my personal friends, but being specially educated as an architect, and having followed the profession for twenty-five years, I do not think it can be considered presumptuousness on my part, or a mark of disrespect, that I ventured to suggest that some of the members of the board do not indicate such a high training or natural genius as to make them reliable, as either literary or artistic critics.
“Only a feeling of kindness prompted me to suggest that some of the members might fill, with honor to themselves and profit to the community, one of many pursuits which requires only personal character, but not a high order of culture. I am always pained when I see any of my friends pretend to know what they do not know, as they thereby put themselves in the attitude of filling positions for which they are not qualified.
“I never indulge in epithets—to call people names is vulgar. The occupation which I suggested to some of the members, of attending to domestic animals, is a most honorable calling. Many pursuits are more profitable, but none is more useful to the community at large, unless it be that of a scavenger. He is the true philanthropist. He does the greatest good to the greatest number, without either profit, honor or glory. On him depends all health and strength of both body and mind, throughout all civilization.
“That I did not suggest an occupation of the highest usefulness, like the latter, was not on account of any intended slight, but simply that it did not occur to me at the time.
“The only act which may in any degree reflect on the board, as far as I know, is the action of the building committee in selecting a plan which is unsafe in construction, defective in its appointments, and which will cost, when finished, $10,000 more than any other plans submitted. That the building committee should be so anxious and hasty to fasten such a defective and expensive building on the community, by wishing to start the foundation of the building this year, seems specially strange, in view of the fact that the honorable mayor went especially before the board to call its attention to the depleted condition of the municipal exchequer, and urged that the building be deferred to the ensuing year.”
Following the publication of G.L. Norrman‘s previous letters [read the first and second], Captain Hendrix of the school board issued a bland, deferential statement praising both Golucke & Stewart’s and Norrman’s work.1
For their part, Golucke & Stewart wrote a catty letter in response to Norrman’s criticism of the firm and their plans, concluding: “We shall pay no further attention to his malicious attacks.”2
Norrman had his say again, in an article appropriately titled “Mr. Norrman Is Mad”, published in The Atlanta Constitution on September 7, 1894. This time, Norrman’s primary target was Captain Hendrix, whom he likened to an “assistant hog drover”.
Norrman’s remarks:
“Why, do you know that the attempts that have been made to answer my objections to the plans selected through the public prints, have amounted to nothing. I objected to those plans first, because they were imperfect and not suitable. My objection then was that of an architect. But now that the committee has selected those plans I object to them as a citizen of Atlanta and as a taxpayer. The building erected by those plans will not only be unsuitable, but it will be unsafe. That building, I tell you, would not be safe for school purposes, and as a citizen I have a right to object to them.3
Norrman continued his rant with another letter:
Editor Constitution—
“The card in this morning’s paper answers none of the complaints in regard to the defects in the adopted plans for the boys’ high school.
“Architecture is a combination of art and science which requires many years of study to comprehend, and any one who reflects for a moment will see how very difficult it is to learn architecture and how subtle the principles are on which it is based, as only a few can, after a lifetime study, design a building which will bear professional criticism, but only very ordinary training is necessary to see the defects which are pointed out in the design adopted for the boys’ high school.
“Captain Hendrix says in his letter that he can see no defects in the plans adopted. I never thought that he could see them. In fact, I believe that he has not the slightest conception of anything which pertains to culture, and would be a much more useful member of the community in the position of assistant hog drover to the president of the board of education than that of chairman of the building committee. I think he could see when pigs were well fed, and he would not then be in a position to waste the public funds or to jeopardize the lives of the occupants of the building.
“As to the card by Golucke & Stewart, I do not blame them for pretending to be architects as long as people will give them work in that line. The idea which I wanted to convey in the former interview was not a reflection on the competency of Golucke & Stewart as architects, but rather a reflection on the culture of those who recommended them.”
Golucke & Stewart. Williams Street School (1894-1951). Atlanta.12
The Background
As part of his ongoing dispute with the Atlanta school board, G.L. Norrman had choice words for the architectural firm of Golucke & Stewart. Norrman’s public criticism was unprofessional, but his assessment of the designers was correct, and frankly, not harsh enough.
Almost nothing is known of Stewart, but J.W. Golucke was a self-proclaimed architect from rural Georgia with no formal training or discernible skill. He was little more than a con artist who, throughout his career, managed to successfully swindle the good-ol’ boys of 27 Georgia counties and four Alabama counties, where he produced a string of courthouses that were sloppily designed and hideously styled, and in several cases so poorly constructed that they posed the risk of catastrophic failure.
Golucke died pathetically in 1907,3 a few weeks after trying to kill himself in a southwest Georgia jail, where he was being held on charges of — no surprise — forgery.45
Every known design by Golucke & Stewart shows consistently clumsy and crude work, and the plan for Atlanta’s boys’ high school was no exception. Norrman shared his opinion of the firm in The Atlanta Constitution for a September 5, 1894, article entitled “In Harsh Terms”.
Norrman’s remarks:
“Why, those plans which the building committee have accepted are a monstrosity in architecture, and the building should not be allowed to go up that way. No building should be erected in which valuable space is thrown away when it could be easily utilized. In fact, it could more easily be utilized than thrown away, as it is by these plans.
You should know that plans cannot be examined and passed upon except by one who knows architectural work thoroughly. Now, the tracing of those lines to the members of that committee were no more than the marks in India ink on a man’s arm. It is not meant for a reflection upon the members of the board or that committee when I say that, but it is said to show that they have simply made a mistake, and a mistake which should be corrected.
Now, Mr. Golucke does not pretend, as I understand it, to be an architect, but attends the building or contract work. Mr. Stewart is no architect: he is simply a tracer of lines. That’s about all, and cannot do anything more than make a nice picture. It was the picture, maybe, that caught the members of the committee which awarded the contract. Why, take for instance that stairway. To come from the second to the first floor there is but one, you may say, while from the third to the second there are two. Suppose all of those who might happen to be on the third floor should rush for an escape. On the second floor they would be joined or augmented by all on that floor. The reverse should be the case. Then, the way the designs read, a great deal of good space is lost that might be utilized, while the plan of ventilation is bad.”6
References
Illustration credit: “GoLucke & Stewart, Architects” (advertisement). The Atlanta Constitution, May 14, 1893, p. 9. ↩︎
“Wrecking” (advertisement). The Atlanta Constitution, August 25, 1951, p. 17. ↩︎
“Death Takes J.W. Golucke”. The Atlanta Constitution, October 28, 1907, p. 6. ↩︎
“J.W. Golucke Tries to Take His Life in Newton Jail”. The Atlanta Journal, October 7, 1907, p. 1. ↩︎
“Atlanta Man Tries Suicide”. The Atlanta Constitution, October 8, 1907, p. 9. ↩︎
“In Harsh Terms.” The Atlanta Constitution, September 5, 1894, p. 2. ↩︎
