Lewis F. Pilcher, AIA (1871–1941), was an American academic and architect active in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. With William G. Tachau, he was a partner of Pilcher and Tachau, the predecessor firm of Tachau and Vought.Nancy L. Tod

''New York's Historic Armories: An Illustrated History'' (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2006), p.268 He was a professor of art at

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...

Poughkeepsie, New York Poughkeepsie ( ), officially the City of Poughkeepsie, separate from the Town of Poughkeepsie around it) is a city in the U.S. state of New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsi ...

. He subsequently was a

state architect Many national governments and states have a public official titled the state architect or government architect. The specific duties and areas of responsibility of state architects vary, but they generally involve responsibility for the design and ...

of New York.Karen Van Lengen and Lisa Reilly.''

: An Architectural Tour.'' The Campus Guide Series. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004), p.80

Biography

Pilcher attended

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the col ...

from 1889-1890, and graduated from the

Columbia School of Architecture Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) is the architecture school of Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. It is regarded as an important and highly prestigious architecture school.

in 1895. He began his career working for Brooklyn architect Mercein Thomas, then started his own practice with former classmate W.G. Tachau. In 1901 Pilcher won a competition to design the Troop C Armory in Brooklyn, which set the state for his later term as State Architect of New York, in which position he would design several armories across the state. He went on to design the armories in Troy, Albany, Buffalo, Yonkers, and Ithaca. Through his connections at Vassar, Pilcher designed the nine-story North Residence (1907), renamed in 1915 as Jewett House. The structure is composed of a four-story U-shaped arms block, which frames a quad-side court, and is attached to a rear eight-story tower that incorporates a 30,000-gallon water tank. The structure extensively used steel and concrete structural components faced with red brick and

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

ornamentation. The high level of decorative work, including

crenellation A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

s, grotesque terracotta faces and animals was incongruous to Vassar’s restrained red brick-with-sandstone-trim Quad dormitories and was nicknamed “Pilcher’s Crime.” The structure failed to attract donors who would have attached their name and it was instead renamed in honor of the college’s first president, Milo P. Jewett. His partner, William G. Tachau, went on to a more successful career in the architectural firm of Tachau and Vought.

Works

*Jewett House (1907, formerly North Residence before 1915) * Troop C Armory in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

*The

Kingsbridge Armory The Kingsbridge Armory, also known as the Eighth Regiment Armory, is a decommissioned armory at Jerome Avenue and West Kingsbridge Road in the Kingsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. It was built in the 1910s, from a design by the f ...

in the Bronx, New York *The Lake Hopatcong Yacht Club, Mount Arlington, New Jersey * New York State Drill Hall, aka Barton Hall,

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

, Ithaca, New York, 1917

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pilcher, Lewis Vassar College faculty Architects from New York (state) Companies based in Manhattan Defunct architecture firms based in New York City People from Poughkeepsie, New York 1871 births 1941 deaths