William Channing Whitney

H. Alden Smith House
William H. Hinkle-Murphy House
Charles J. Martin House

William Ellery Channing Whitney[1] (April 11, 1851 – August 23, 1945) was an American architect who practiced in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[2] He specialized primarily in domestic architecture, designing homes for many prominent Twin Cities families.

Biography

Early years

Born in Harvard, Massachusetts, the son of Benjamin F. Whitney, he was educated at Lawrence Academy at Groton, Massachusetts, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his Bachelor of Science from the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1872. After working in the Boston architectural office of William Ralph Emerson and Carl Fehmer for several years, he moved to Minneapolis in 1878, where he formed an architectural partnership with James C. Plant (1879-1885). In 1885 he began to practice on his own and soon gained a reputation among the manufacturing and milling elite for his residential designs; he built residences for Frank H. Peavey, James S. Bell, William H. Dunwoody, and others. The house he designed in Saint Paul for Horace Hills Irvine in 1911 is now the Minnesota Governor's Residence.

Career

Whitney is credited with introducing neo-Georgian architecture to Minneapolis with his design for the William J. Hinkle House (1886–1887). Within the tasteful exteriors that appealed to his upper-class patrons, Whitney's houses were full of modern innovations, such as central vacuum cleaning plants, electrical refrigeration, and intercom systems. With the reduced household staffing of the post-World War era, his efficient houses retained their value.

During the height of his career he served on the Board of Trustees of the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts from 1888 to 1896. As a prominent architect of Minneapolis, he was selected to design the Minnesota Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.[3] The structure was built under the impetus of the City Beautiful movement, whose aesthetic was expressed at the exposition's "White City." As a follower of the City Beautiful movement, Whitney was a strong proponent of city parks and ennobling urban schemes.

Whitney continued to practice and trained a younger generation of architects in his office until his retirement in 1925.[4] He was a member of the American Institute of Architects.

Personal life

Whitney married Alma C. Walker on October 6, 1881. The couple had two daughters, Marion (born August 19, 1882) and Katherine (born March 16, 1888).[5]

Selected houses, all in the Minneapolis-St Paul area

Other commissions

Notes

  1. ↑ Frederick Clifton Pierce, The Descendants of John Whitney, Who Came from London, England, to Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1635. (Chicago) 1895:541-45
  2. ↑ He was named for the Unitarian minister Dr. William Ellery Channing (1780-1842).
  3. ↑ The Dream City: Minnesota's Building
  4. ↑ C.B. Chapman, Adam L. Dorr, and Serenus Colburn, his head draftsman until 1895, are mentioned at Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota: William Channing Whitney archives website.
  5. ↑ Pierce 1895.
  6. ↑ Taylor, Mary E. (August 1985). "D.R. Moon Memorial Library" (PDF). NRHP Inventory-Nomination Form. National Park Service. Retrieved 2016-04-10.

External links


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