Henry Austin (December 4, 1804 – December 17, 1891) was a prominent and prolific American architect based in
New Haven
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
,
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
. He practiced for more than fifty years and designed many public buildings and homes primarily in the New Haven area."Henry Austin", International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture (Detroit: St. James Press, 1993). His most significant years of production seem to be the 1840s and 1850s.O'Gorman pg.2
Life and practice
The paucity of precise information concerned with Austin and a lack of many personal papers (such as diaries or letters) makes a complete biography of his life difficult to write. Austin was born in
Hamden, Connecticut
Hamden is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town's nickname is "The Land of the Sleeping Giant". The population was 61,169 at the 2020 census.
History
The peaceful tribe of Quinnipiacs were the first residents of the ...
in 1804 and was the son of Daniel and Adah (Dorman) Austin. He first seems to have worked as a carpenter's apprentice and then began his career in architecture in association with
Ithiel Town
Ithiel Town (October 3, 1784 – June 13, 1844) was an American architect and civil engineer. One of the first generation of professional architects in the United States, Town made significant contributions to American architecture in the ...
and
Alexander Jackson Davis
Alexander Jackson Davis, or A. J. Davis (July 24, 1803 – January 14, 1892), was an American architect, known particularly for his association with the Gothic Revival style.
Education
Davis was born in New York City and studied at t ...
, although the nature of his relationship to Town and Davis has not been ascertained. In 1837, he opened his own office in
Hartford
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...
, evidenced by newspaper advertisements.O'Gorman pg.9 In Hartford, he designed the tower of Christ Church Cathedral (1838), the Wadsworth Athenaeum with Town and Davis (1842, his involvement is uncertain), the demolished gothic-revival Kellogg house (1841), and the long-gone 1842 building for St. John's Episcopal Church (Hartford, Connecticut); he also became associated at this time with Nelson Hotchkiss a New Haven real estate developer and designed with him villas along "Park Row" in
Trenton, NJ
Trenton is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. It was the capital of the United States from November 1 to December 24, 1784. He worked in a range of styles popular in the nineteenth century including
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
,
Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
,
Egyptian
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
and
Moorish Revival
Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of Romanticist Orientalism. It reached the height of its popularity after the mid-19th centur ...
. In some buildings, he employed an eclectic mix of styles, creating varied, exotic formi. His New Haven work left a lasting impression on the domestic architecture of the then-developing real estate projects in the areas of
Wooster Square
Wooster Square is a neighborhood in the city of New Haven, Connecticut to the east of downtown. The name refers to a park square (named for the American Revolutionary War hero, David Wooster) located between Greene Street, Wooster Place, Chapel S ...
and
Hillhouse Avenue
Hillhouse Avenue is a street in New Haven, Connecticut, famous for its many nineteenth century mansions, including the president's house at Yale University. Both Charles Dickens and Mark Twain have described it as "the most beautiful street in Amer ...
. In Wooster Square he designed the Italianate James E. English House (1845), the exotic Indian/Moorish Willis Bristol House (1845), the Nelson Hotchkiss House (1850), and the irregular Italianate villa Oliver B. King House (1852). On Hillhouse Avenue he worked on the
James Dwight Dana House
The James Dwight Dana House, also known as the Dana House, is a historic 19th-century Italianate house at 24 Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut, in the United States. This building, designed by New Haven architect Henry Austin, was th ...
(1848) and the
John Pitkin Norton House
Steinbach Hall, also known as the John Pitkin Norton House, is a historic building on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S..
History
The house was built in 1848–49 as a private residence for John Pitkin Norton, a science ...
(1849), as well as remodeled the Greek Revival Ithiel Town House of 1836 for
Joseph E. Sheffield
Joseph Earle Sheffield (June 19, 1793 – February 17, 1882) was an American railroad magnate and philanthropist.
Sheffield was born in Southport, Connecticut, the son of Paul King Sheffield, a shipowner, and his wife Mabel (née Thorpe).
H ...
in 1859 (demolished), encasing Town's structure in an exuberant Italianate shell. In New Haven, Austin made the so-called candelabra column (a column inspired by Indian architecture consisting of superimposed vegetal layers) his signature, as well as elaborate Indian/Moorish lambrequins over windows, and thick vegetal anthemia and tendrils over window surrounds. Other significant works in New Haven include the Grove Street Cemetery Gate in Egyptian Revival (1848–49), Dwight Hall at Yale (1842–1845), the Townsend City Savings Bank (demolished, 1852), the Palladium Building (formerly Young Men's Institute, 1855) and the strange Moorish New Haven Railroad Station (demolished, 1848). His most significant non-residential commission in New Haven was the City Hall (1860), a polychrome, asymmetrical, Gothic Revival structure, which, although significantly altered in the 1980s, still maintains Austin's facade and some interior decorative features.
Austin also worked in other regions and states. In Connecticut, he designed churches in Gothic revival and Italianate styles in Northford (Congregational 1845),
Waterbury
Waterbury is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut on the Naugatuck River, southwest of Hartford and northeast of New York City. Waterbury is the second-largest city in New Haven County, Connecticut. According to the 2020 US Census, in 202 ...
(St. John's Episcopal Church, 1846),
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
(First Congregational 1849), Plainville (Congregational 1850), and Seymour (Trinity Episcopal, 1858). Perhaps his most significant out-of-state commission was the Morse-Libby House ( Victoria Mansion) in Portland, ME, 1857–1860, for Sylvester Ruggles Morse. This large, elaborate Italianate mansion in brownstone is considered one of Austin's best works and has been called "one of the culminating domestic designs of the antebellum years, and of the Italianate villa in general." One of his last major commissions was for the gothic, brownstone library (Rich Hall, 1866–68), now Patricelli '92 Theater, at
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...
in Middletown, CT.
After the 1860s, Austin's style changed with the times, incorporating structures in the Second Empire and Stick styles. In 1868, he constructed two Second Empire houses on Prospect Street in New Haven for
Oliver Winchester
Oliver Fisher Winchester (November 30, 1810 – December 11, 1880) was an American businessman and politician, best known as being the founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company.
Birth and marriage
He was the son of Samuel Winchester ...
and John M. Davies. The Winchester House has been demolished, but the Davies house remains, having been restored by Yale and renamed the Betts House. Austin's son, Fred, joined his father's practice in later years, but the firm did not survive long after Austin's death. Throughout his later years, Austin maintained control of his firm and was famous as he aged for wearing a dark brown wig. He was the chairman of the Board of Commissioners of Public Buildings in New Haven at the time of his death; he also served on the New Haven city council in 1854 and belonged to the Masons for fifty years. For an image of the only photograph that was taken of Austin In recent years, curiosity has been raised about Austin's professional relationship to his New Haven contemporary,
Sidney Mason Stone
Sidney Mason Stone (May 8, 1803 – August 10, 1882) was a prominent Connecticut architect and builder known for designs of churches, institutional buildings and residences. His creations incorporated Greek Revival architecture, Greek Revival, Ro ...
, but, other than minor references to civic duties they shared, there seems to be little documentation available to fuel such an inquiry.
Austin was married twice, first to Harriet M. Hooker, then to Jane Hempstead, and had four children who survived into adulthood, Willard, Henry, David, and Fred.O'Gorman pg.1 n.1 He died in 1891 in New Haven and is interred in
Grove Street Cemetery
Grove Street Cemetery or Grove Street Burial Ground is a cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut, that is surrounded by the Yale University campus. It was organized in 1796 as the New Haven Burying Ground and incorporated in October 1797 to replace the ...
, whose famous gates he designed.
Selected works
* indicates demolished or significantly altered buildings