Minard Lafever | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1798-08-10)August 10, 1798[1] |
| Died | September 26, 1854(1854-09-26) (aged 56)[1] |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Buildings | First Presbyterian Church (Sag Harbor),St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church |
Minard Lafever (1798–1854) was an Americanarchitect of churches and houses in the United States in the early nineteenth century.[2]
Lafever began life as a carpenter around 1820. At this period in the United States there were no professional schools of architecture and few who claimed the title architect. Most structures were designed and put up by builders, and architects and builders were trained by working under master builders.[2]
In 1829 Lafever publishedThe Young Builders' General Instructor, followed byModern Builders' Guide in 1833,The Beauties of Modern Architecture in 1835 andThe Architectural Instructor in 1850.[2] Hispattern books were influential in spreading hisGreek Revival style.
Five of his buildings were designatedNational Historic Landmarks in the 20th and 21st centuries:
Other notable buildings include:
One of his most successful acolytes wasJohn F. Rague, who designed and built the 1837Old Capitol of Illinois and the 1840Territorial Capitol of Iowa.[3]
Lafever wrote fivepattern books that were influential in spreading hisGreek Revival style, most notably "The Modern Builder's Guide" (1833) and "The Beauties of Modern Architecture" (1835). The Greek RevivalGovernment Street Presbyterian Church inMobile, Alabama is aNational Historic Landmark that was designed using many of the latter book's detailed guidelines.[4] That church's tall steeple, like the steeple of Lafever's First Presbyterian Church in Sag Harbor, was destroyed in a hurricane.
Other historic structures built using Lafever's designs includeRose Hill Mansion, a National Historic Landmark in western New York, which was built in the style of a two-story Greek temple withIonic columns in 1837.[5] Two mansions in theBoston Post Road Historic District— the1838 Peter Augustus Jay House and Lounsberry— were built using Lafever's designs, and greatly resemble illustrated plates found within Lafever's books.[6]Rose Glen, an antebellum plantation house nearSevierville, Tennessee, was modeled after Lafever's "Design for a Country Villa," which appeared as the frontispiece in bothThe Modern Builder's Guide andThe Beauties of Modern Architecture.[7]
Lafever did not confine himself to a single style. HisSt. James' Church, New York on James Street near Madison Street in Manhattan (1837) isGreek Revival as is his building for Sailors' Snug Harbor, hisFirst Presbyterian Church (Sag Harbor) (1844) isEgyptian Revival, his brownstoneSt. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church at Montague and Clinton Streets in Brooklyn Heights (1847) isGothic Revival and his Church of the Holy Apostles at Ninth Avenue and 28th Street in Manhattan (1848–1854) is Romanesque/Italianate.[2]
His last commission was thePacker Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, which opened in 1854. The Packer building is in Tudor Gothic style, with 30 schoolrooms, and a two-story-high chapel on the third floor. It has two towers of different size, and the “off-center arrangement of two large peaked gables, give the school the exterior appearance of picturesque irregularity common to the Gothic revival.”[2] However, the interior is compact and symmetrical, with long crossed hallways dividing the building into quadrants. Architectural historianAndrew Dolkart calls Lafever’s design of Packer "one of the earliest and most sophisticated evocations of English-inspired Collegiate Gothic, creating the educational atmosphere of Oxford and Cambridge."[2]
A list of his churches, extant and not, and a well-researched biography is included in a 2006 nomination forFirst Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Kingston.[1]
