William Ralph Emerson

(b Alton, IL, 11 March 1833; d Milton, MA, 23 Nov 1917). American architect. He trained in the office of Jonathan Preston (1801-88), a little-known architect-builder in Boston. In 1857-61 he was in partnership with Preston, then practised on his own for two years. There followed an association with the Boston architect Carl Fehmer (b 1838), which lasted until 1873. A few projects from this early period have been identified, mostly in partnership with Fehmer, which are in the popular historical styles of the period and exhibit little that became characteristic of Emerson's later work.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

American architect. His late-C19 domestic architecture, especially in the Shingle and Stick styles, was significant, although he produced elegant designs in versions of Queen Anne and Colonial Revival. The Forbes House, Milton, MA (1876), is reckoned to be his finest building in the Stick style, while his earliest building in the Shingle style was the C. J. Morrill House, Bar Harbor, ME (1879). His Loring House, Pride's Crossing, MA (1881), was his most remarkable developed work in the Shingle style.

Bibliography

• V.J.Scully (1971, 1974, 1989)
• Zaitzevsky (1969)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

Post Office and Old Courthouse, Portland, Maine.

William Ralph Emerson (March 11, 1833 - November 23, 1917) was an American architect.

Emerson was born in Alton, Illinois, a cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and trained in the office of Jonathan Preston (1801–1888), an architect–builder in Boston, Massachusetts. He formed an architectural partnership with Preston (1857–1861), practised alone for two years, then partnered with Carl Fehmer (1864-1873). On September 15, 1873 he married Sylvia Hathaway Watson.

Emerson's early works, such as the Portland Post Office, were in a neo-classical style, but he is best known for his mature Shingle Style houses and inns.

Emerson died on November 23, 1917, in Milton, Massachusetts.

Selected works

• 1867 Post Office and Courthouse, 169 Middle Street, Portland, Maine (demolished 1965)
• 1869 Sanford-Covell Villa Marina, 72 Washington Street, Newport, Rhode Island
• 1869 Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Mansion renovation, Woodstock, Vermont
• 1875 Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital, Harrison Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts
• 1881 Boston Art Club, Dartmouth Street, Boston, Massachusetts
• 1887 Saint Jude's Episcopal Church, Seal Harbor, Maine
• 1887 "Tianderah" stone and shingle residence, Gilbertsville, New York; Listed on the National Historic Register, November 2, 1978 #78001894
• 1889 William James House, 95 Irving Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• 1890 The Reading Room, now part of the Bar Harbor Inn, Bar Harbor, Maine
• 1896 Felsted, a cottage for Frederick Law Olmsted, Deer Isle, Maine

References

• The architecture of William Ralph Emerson, catalog by Cynthia Zaitzevsky with photography by Myron Miller, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass. 1969.

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