Willard Thomas Sears (November 5, 1837 – May 21, 1920) was a prominent
New England architect of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who worked primarily in the
Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
and
Renaissance Revival styles.
In 1861, Sears opened an architectural studio with
Charles Amos Cummings. Together as
Cummings and Sears, they designed many significant buildings, primarily ecclesiastical and academic, in and around
Boston, including Brechin Hall and the Stone Chapel at
Phillips Academy
("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness
, address = 180 Main Street
, city = Andover
, state = Ma ...
in
Andover, the
Old South Church on
Copley Square (1875), and the Cyclorama (1884).
The firm of Sears and Cummings was also capable of designing utilitarian projects and did the design of a number of aqueducts and railroad bridges. They formed a development company which intended to construct an elevated railway in Brooklyn, New York
Kings County Elevated Railway but being out of towners were not able to get political co-operation and sold off the design and rights. The executive in charge was Judge
Hiram Bond.
In 1896, Sears was hired by
Isabella Stewart Gardner to design her home, Fenway Court, in Boston's
Fenway neighborhood. Upon her death Fenway Court became the
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
In 1897, he designed what would become the Roosevelt Cottage for Mrs. Hartman Kuhn at what would become (in 1964) the
Roosevelt Campobello International Park in
New Brunswick,
Canada.
In 1898, Sears was commissioned to design the
Pilgrim Monument
The Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, Massachusetts, was built between 1907 and 1910 to commemorate the first landfall of the Pilgrims in 1620 and the signing of the Mayflower Compact in Provincetown Harbor. This campanile is the tallest all- ...
in
Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Upon his death his practice was succeeded by his grandson, architect Edward Sears Read.
[''Harvard College, Class of 1921: Decennial Report, June, 1921''. Boston: Four Seas Company, 1921.]
Notes
1837 births
1920 deaths
American architects
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