William Adams Delano | |
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| Born | (1874-01-21)January 21, 1874 New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Died | January 12, 1960(1960-01-12) (aged 85) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Lawrenceville School Yale University Columbia University École des Beaux-Arts |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Awards | AIA Gold Medal (1953) |
| Practice | Delano & Aldrich |
| Buildings | Kykuit Oheka Castle Sterling Divinity Quadrangle, Yale Divinity School |
William Adams Delano (January 21, 1874 – January 12, 1960) was an Americanarchitect and a partner withChester Holmes Aldrich in the firm ofDelano & Aldrich. The firm worked in theBeaux-Arts tradition for elite clients in New York City,Long Island and elsewhere, building townhouses, country houses, clubs, banks and buildings for colleges and private schools. Moving on from the classical and baroque Beaux-Arts repertory, they often designed in the neo-Georgian and neo-Federal styles, and many of their buildings were clad in brick with limestone or white marble trim, a combination which came to be their trademark.
Delano was born in New York City on January 21, 1874, and was a member of theDelano family ofMassachusetts. His parents were Eugene Delano (1844–1920) and Susan Magoun (née Adams) Delano (1848–1904). His father was an 1866 graduate ofWilliams College and a partner inBrown Brothers & Company banking and trading group. Among his siblings was Moreau Delano, also a banker with Brown Brothers, and two sisters: Caroline Delano, who married Augustus B. Wadsworth (a director of theWadsworth Center), andSusan Delano, a botanist who married Charles W. McKelvey.[1][2]
His paternal grandparents were Moreau Delano and Sarah Ann (née Abrams) Delano.[1] He was a distant cousin of PresidentFranklin Delano Roosevelt. Through his maternal aunt,Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown, he was the nephew ofJohn Crosby Brown, the head of Brown Brothers & Company. Mary Elizabeth Adams (Brown) was the minister William Adams sister, who was Delano's maternal grandfather, and for whom he was named. The ministerWilliam Adams'[3] wife was Martha Bradshaw Magoun, who was the maternal grandmother of Delano, and she was the daughter ofThatcher Magoun (associated with theThatcher Magoun clipper and60 State Street) and Mary Bradshaw. Previously the minister William Adams was married to Susan Patten Magoun, sister of Martha Bradshaw, before Susan Patten died. A further connection between the families resides in the offspring of John Crosby Brown and Mary Elizabeth's six children, with a son Thatcher Magoun Brown named in honor of Thatcher Magoun, along with daughter Mary Magoun Brown, and their eldest child William Adams Brown, who like Delano was also named in honor of their grandfather the minister William Adams. Furthermore, Delano's father Eugene had made partner with the Philadelphia house of Brown Brothers & Co., meanwhile his mothers middle name is Magoun.[citation needed]
Delano was educated at theLawrenceville School andYale University, where he served on the editorial board of campus humor magazineThe Yale Record[4] and was a member ofScroll and Key, andColumbia University's school of architecture. He also studied at theÉcole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, receiving a diploma in 1903.
He met his longstanding partner,Chester Holmes Aldrich, when they worked together at the office ofCarrère and Hastings in the years before the turn of the 20th century. They formed their partnership after Delano's return from Europe in 1903 and almost immediately won commissions from theRockefeller family, among others. Delano & Aldrich tended to adapt conservativeGeorgian andFederal architectural styles for its townhouses, churches, schools, and a spate of social clubs for theAstors,Vanderbilts, and theWhitneys. Separately (Delano was the more prolific) and in tandem they designed a number of buildings atYale.[5] Delano taught at Columbia University from 1903 to 1910.
Delano alone won the commission for the second-largest residence in the United States,Oheka, overlookingCold Spring Harbor onLong Island, New York for financierOtto Kahn. Built from 1914 to 1919 in Frenchchateau style, with gardens byOlmsted Brothers, Oheka ranges over 109,000 square feet (10,000 m2) and was staffed with 125 people.
In 1922, Delano designed the interiors of theGrand Central Art Galleries, an artists' cooperative established that year byJohn Singer Sargent,Edmund Greacen,Walter Leighton Clark, and others.[6] Eight years later Delano and Aldrich were asked by the organization to design theU.S. Pavilion at theVenice Biennale.[7] The purchase of the land, design, and construction was paid for by the Galleries and personally supervised by Clark. As he wrote in the 1934 catalog:
Pursuing our purpose of putting American art prominently before the world, the directors a few years ago appropriated the sum of $25,000 for the erection of an exhibition building in Venice on the grounds of the International Biennial. Messrs. Delano and Aldrich generously donated the plans for this building which is constructed of Istrian marble and pink brick and more than holds its own with the twenty-five other buildings in the Park owned by the various European governments.[8]
The pavilion, owned and operated by the Galleries, opened on May 4, 1930.[7] It was sold to theMuseum of Modern Art in 1954 and later to theGuggenheim Museum.[9]
Delano's sense of humor was expressed in some his architectural details andfriezes, such as the low-relief frieze of tortoises and hares in the apartment block at 1040 Park Avenue, andbackgammon club rooms ornamented like backgammon boards. At theMarine Air Terminal atLaGuardia Airport, built forPan American Airways' transatlanticseaplane service in 1939 and the oldest such passenger air facility still in use, hisArt Decoterra cotta friezes featureflying fish. "There is as much that is new to be said in architecture today by a man of imagination who employs traditional motifs as there is in literature by an author, who, to express his thought, still employs the English language," Delano wrote in 1928.[citation needed]
In Washington, D.C., Delano was the architect for the 1927 renovation to theWhite House, which later led to structural problems and rebuilding during the Truman Administration. (SeeWhite House Reconstruction.) He served on theNational Capital Planning Commission and theU.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 1924 to 1928, including a term as vice chairman in 1928. This service led to his firm receiving the design contract for theNew Post Office building, completed in 1934, in theFederal Triangle complex. Delano served on the board of design for the1939 New York World's Fair and consulted on the controversial White HouseTruman Balcony in 1946, prior to the reconstruction project of 1949–52.[citation needed]
Delano's awards and honors include election to theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters and theNational Institute of Arts and Letters in 1940. In 1948, Delano was commissioned to design theEpinal American Cemetery and Memorial (1948–56), one of fourteenWorld War II monuments constructed abroad by theAmerican Battle Monuments Commission. Delano also designed terminals at La Guardia and Miami airports.[citation needed]
He was named an officer by the FrenchLegion of Honour and was an academician of the National Academy of Design.[10] In 1953, theAmerican Institute of Architects awarded William Adams Delano itsGold Medal.
Delano continued to practice almost until his death in 1960. Aldrich had left the partnership in 1935 to become the resident director of theAmerican Academy at Rome.
Delano married Louisa Millicent Sheffield (née Potter) on May 23, 1907.[11] His son, William Richard Potter Delano, was born on July 31, 1909.[11] His son married Dorothea Frances Lehmann in October 1939.[12]
Delano died on January 12, 1960, aged 85, in New York City.[13]
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