(b Florence, 31 Oct 1858; d Philadelphia, PA, 21 Oct 1944). American architect. He was born to a prominent Philadelphia family and spent his first 11 years in Italy, where his father was serving as a US consular official. Eyre's architectural training came principally through an apprenticeship in Philadelphia under James Peacock Sims (1849-82), whom he joined in partnership just before Sims's sudden death. Sims's last works and Eyre's own early works show the impact of Richard Norman Shaw's Queen Anne and Old English Revival styles, aspects particularly notable in The Anglecot (1883; altered), 401 East Evergreen Avenue, Philadelphia, and in the H. Genet Taylor House (1885) in Camden, NJ. By the late 1880s, however, his designs were moving towards greater stylistic freedom, a departure comparable to that in the works of that decade by McKim, Mead & White, Lamb & Rich and Peabody & Stearns. Some works, particularly suburban houses, were clearly influenced by the Shingle style, such as the Charles L. Freer House (1890), in Detroit, MI. In his town houses Eyre achieved an almost unmatched type of free and flowing design, effortlessly eclectic, without the effect of a 'shotgun marriage' of styles. This is particularly evident in his Rodman Wistar House (1887; altered), 1014 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, and his C. B. Moore House (1891), 1321 Locust Street, Philadelphia. In many ways, such houses represent an urban equivalent to the American achievement in the creation of the Shingle style. They were vaguely anglophile in derivation and selfconsciously artistic but were usually reliant on the horizontal continuity of thin brick courses and the warmth of buff-toned brick in the place of more rustic materials. Often a more formal, cosmopolitan note was introduced by historically allusive stone-carving. In rural settings or for 'bohemian' clubs, Eyre often turned to an engaging Arts and Crafts manner, as in his Mask and Wig Club (1893), 311 South Camac Street, Philadelphia, or his Neilson Brown House (1900) in the Torresdale section of Philadelphia, but only rarely, as in the University of Pennsylvania Museum (begun 1893), Philadelphia, did these qualities feature in his larger urban projects. The Museum was designed in collaboration with his like-minded peers Frank Miles Day (1861-1918), Walter Cope and John Stewardson, but Eyre's hand is the most evident.
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