George A. Frederick
Encyclopedia
George Aloysius Frederick (December 16, 1842 — August 17, 1924) was a German-American architect
with a practice in Baltimore
, Maryland
, where his most prominent commission was the Baltimore City Hall
(1867–75), awarded him when he was only twenty-one.
immigrants from Bavaria
that settled in Baltimore. As a child his parents called him Volishis Georg, but before entering his apprenticeship he Americanized his name to George Aloysius, remaining George A. Frederick for the rest of his life. His father was employed as a clerk and supported seven children: George, Mary, Alphonse Joseph, Wilhemena, Anna, Catherine, and Cecelia. Alphonse would become a Sulpician priest at St. Charles College
in Catonsville
, taking the name Reverend Joseph A. Frederick. The German Catholic roots nurtured in George's youth would influence the work he accepted throughout his career. He was educated at the Christian Brothers
School in Baltimore until 1858 when he was accepted as an apprentice in Lind & Murdoch's architecture firm of Baltimore. Without formal architectural schools, apprenticeship was the most common way to enter the building profession. For the next four years he worked under this firm and had some experience also with Niernsee
& Neilson of Baltimore.
The young architect left his apprenticeship around 1863 with a masterful command of architecture and set up his own practice. At that time, Baltimore architects and builders looked to the City Council's
arrangements for a new City Hall
, with a budget estimated at $1,000,000, as the most enticing public project. The first competition to plan City Hall was in 1860, but the winner, William T. Marshall, fled from Baltimore during the Civil War
. The second City Hall competition failed to elicit any entrants as the chaos of army movement to and from Gettysburg
overwhelmed the city. Finally, a July 1, 1864, deadline was set for the third and final competition. At the age of twenty-one, Frederick submitted a design and beat out the more experienced bidders for the commission. Mayor Chapman and City Council summoned Frederick on September 18, 1865, to explain his plans and make any corrections. After doing so Frederick was commissioned as architect for City Hall on a two percent commission, paid monthly as work progressed. His plan was in the French Renaissance style
of the Second Empire, capped by a cupola
; the latter is thought to be inspired by the construction of the United States Capitol
building dome begun in 1856. Frederick's design looked to the new additions to the Palais du Louvre
, completed under Hector Lefuel
in 1857, and well publicized to professionals and architects alike through engravings, lithographs and description; its high Mansard roof
s, bold corner pavilions, richly framed dormers are reflected in Frederick's design for City Hall, above which rises the central dome, 227 feet (69.2 m) high, above an interior rotunda 119 feet (36.3 m) high. Twin interior courts provided every room with natural light. It was constructed with Baltimore County
marble
(also referred to as Beaver Dam Marble) and Falls Road bluestone
. Baltimore carpenter J.M. Sudsberg designed and carved the doors bearing the seal of Baltimore
and Battle Monument
. Remarkably, the building was designed to be fireproof, the first municipal building so built in the nation. The Building Committee appointed him consulting architect in 1867, and as with many of his other projects, Frederick remained involved throughout the construction of his plans.
On October 18 of that year the cornerstone
was laid. Though an address by the Hon. J.H.B. Latrobe and a Masonic cornerstone-laying ceremony provided a spectacle to draw the crowds to the cornerstone laying ceremony, The Sun
believed that the small crowd of onlookers represented the populace's view that a new City Hall at $1,000,000 was an unnecessary expenditure when economic strains from the war still crippled the city. In the summer of 1868 The Sun's fears were realized. The entirety of the Building Committee was forced to resign after charges of fraud
revealed that they did not choose the lowest bidding contractors for marble, brick, lumber, and cement. Frederick was partly to blame for the brick contract. He used the term "common red" brick on his list of materials needed for the structure, when in fact no red bricks were used. Not knowing this, the Building Committee paid $8,188 for unneeded red bricks. Construction went on despite this setback. The new Building Committee included three mechanics to provide expertise and prevent a similar mistake. The building was finished in 1875, and to the surprise of the municipality, cost only $2,271,135.64 out of a total appropriation of $2,500,000 (the budget was expanded as construction progressed). The Building Committee and Frederick were seen as heroes for leaving $228,864.36 as a surplus to the city. A grand ceremony handing over the new City Hall from the Building Committee to Latrobe, representing the people of Baltimore, took place on October 26, 1875. Governor James Black Groome
headed the procession, followed by the two regiments from Fort McHenry
, civic and trade groups of the city, and the Baltimore Fire Department.
in Jessup
, Anne Arundel County, in 1875. Though not related to Frederick's actions, the Board of Public Works came under scrutiny in their management of this project. On July 17, 1875 the individual members of the Board of Public Works—Governor James Black Groome, Treasurer Barnes Compton
, and Comptroller Levin Woolford—filed suits of libel against Charles C. and Albert K. Fulton, proprietors of the Baltimore American
, claiming $20,000 each in damages. The conflict originated in a letter to the editor and follow-up article published in the American on June 26 and June 28, 1875. Both charged the overseers of the new House of Correction in Jessup with mismanagement at best, political corruption at worst.
After the officials filed their suits against the Fultons, the case was settled in open court on February 17, 1876. The Hagerstown Mail chastised the Board for failing to be open to public criticism, a requirement of American officeholders. A day after the court agreement, the Baltimore Sun reported that the Board of Public Works was expected to petition for an extra $200,000 over the $250,000 appropriation in order to complete the House of Correction as planned. Though optimistic at staying on budget in 1876, Comptroller Woolford’s 1877 Annual Report recognized that nearly the whole of the budget had been spent and “a considerable sum will be necessary to furnish the building and provide heat, water and light, so as to fit the institution for the reception of prisoners.” That considerable sum was expected to total $25,000 in 1878 and another $86,000 in 1879.
in Annapolis
. Frederick was likely an apprentice to Lind & Murdoch when they worked on the octagonal library in the State House in 1858. In 1876 Governor Groome signed into law an act appropriating $32,000 for the repairs. After a year of delays, Frederick was finally instructed to contract with various builders in April 1877. Once work began, Frederick and the Board quickly realized that the building was in much worse condition than imagined. The cellar was too small to hold a heater, the floors had settled unevenly and were unsafe, and the roof was covered with tin which leaked and rotted the wood underneath. In fact, the American Architect and Building News reported that as Frederick worked on the repairs he discovered that the roof had been renewed three times, but each time the old shingles had been left underneath. The architect later commented "that under such conditions the State House had not resolved itself into a holocaust was a surprise to the architects when employed and of necessity made familiar with such surroundings." Once the building was stripped to address these repairs and install heating, it needed to be plastered and painted. Though the original intention had been to preserve the Senate Chamber and other historic rooms in their original Revolutionary
appearance, as Groome testified on behalf of the Board of Public Works, having redone the entire building it would seem awkward to simply put back the old furniture. "We could have finished in a plain, simple and Quaker-like way," he said, "But...if we did the work slovenly and in a plain manner, we did not think we would be justified in exceeding the appropriation."
And they certainly exceeded the appropriation. The budget of $32,000 more than tripled to $111,388.29. In 1878 the House of Delegates
appointed a Select Committee to Investigate the Repairs upon the State House. They heard testimony from the Board of Public Works, Frederick, and all contractors involved in the repairs. After concluding that it was not the 1876 Legislature's fault for appropriating so little money—they had no way of knowing the extent of the building's damage—and pardoning the Board of Public Works for simply insuring the safety of elected officials, the Select Committee placed blame squarely on the architect, George Frederick. While the government officials were not to blame for failing to realize the magnitude of the repairs until the building was torn apart, Frederick should not have put in such a low bid. The Committee questioned both the Board and Frederick on the 5% commission for the project, implying that he added costs in order to raise his compensation. Frederick later claimed that he worked harder on the State House project than any other in his life. As with the House of Correction, Frederick made sure his contractors were paid in full for their time and materials. The architect himself, held by a verbal agreement rather than written contract as was common in his profession, never received payment for working on the State House.
; Gottschalk, Donnell and German Correspondent buildings; Baltimore City College
; Baltimore City Hall; the Edgar Allan Poe
Monument; and the Abell Building. The Abell Building warehouses were known for their remarkable combination of materials (Baltimore brick, bluestone, white marble, and terra-cotta trim) and styles (Neo-Grec
and Italianate). He planned the Rennert Hotel on Fayette Street in 1885. The U.S. Marine Hospital in Baltimore was also a work of Frederick.
Two notable residences designed by Frederick were the Bauernschmidt House and Cylburn
. The former, located at Broadway and North Avenue, was the home of a Baltimore German American beer baron John Bauernschmidt. Frederick designed Cylburn in 1863, his first year out of apprenticeship, but the Civil War interrupted its construction. Industrialist Jesse Tyson originally planned the summer home for his mother as a retreat from the heat of the inner city, but the delay meant that the home was instead used to welcome his new bride. Cylburn was not completed until 1889, the year Jesse, in his sixties, married nineteen year old debutante Edyth Johns. The couple decorated their lavish Italianate and Second Empire style home with imported European furniture, no doubt to impress high society summer visitors from Baltimore.
In contrast to these commercial buildings and private homes, Frederick also maintained a relationship with the roots of his family: German Catholics. Greisenheim, a home for aged Germans, Baltimore's German Orphan Asylum and the German Correspondent (German language newspaper) building reflected ties to his parents' homeland. The last of these was completed in 1869 on a prominent corner lot on Baltimore Avenue; it had three main floors and an attic behind French mansards, with a marble-clad facing with Venetian-Gothic windows. Frederick also designed a number of buildings for the Archdiocese of Baltimore. His churches include St. Pius, St. James and St. John's Church, St. James the Less
, and Fourteen Holy Martyrs. St. James and St. John's, a Redemptorist church, catered to the neighborhood German Catholics. Whiteford Hall, a school at St. Joseph's Monastery, was completed in 1890. St. Joseph's Hospital
, now relocated in Towson
, was also a Catholic enterprise finished in 1871. In 1890, he entered a competition to plan Catholic University
in Washington, D.C.
, but was beat by fellow Baltimore architects Baldwin & Pennington.
Despite his aversion to state commissions, Frederick continued to work for Baltimore City as the architect for the Baltimore Park Commission, a position he held from 1863-1895. He worked on projects in Druid Hill Park
, Patterson Park
and Federal Hill Park. Baltimore's Druid Hill Park, purchased for the city in 1860, was designed by Howard Daniels, Baltimore Park Commissioners' landscape designer and John H. B. Latrobe, who designed the gateways to the park and the alterations made to the early-19th century Nicholas Rogers mansion that already stood in the site. Druid Hill Park ranks with Central Park
in New York City
, begun in 1859, and Fairmount Park
in Philadelphia as the oldest landscaped public parks in the United States. Among Frederick's playful structures for Druid Hill in Moorish and Chinese styles was the Chinese Station erected in 1864 and the Moorish Station, which were stops on a narrow-gauge railroad that once wound through the park.
Frederick represented Maryland in the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia by designing a building to represent the state. In 1893 he planned the Maryland Exposition Building at the Chicago World's Fair
.
since 1868, and was given a Fellowship in 1877. Later in his career he sat on the Board of Directors. In 1913 he recorded his Recollections of Baltimore architects from the mid- to late nineteenth century for the A.I.A. On February 24, 1923, he lost his wife of fifty-eight years to a brain hemorrhage. A year later, on August 17, he died of the same cause and was interred in New Cathedral Cemetery. He was survived by his daughter Katherine, brother Rev. Joseph Frederick, and sister Miss Philomena Frederick. Though he witnessed the Baltimore Fire of 1904
destroy many of his creations, one obituary proclaimed that "Mr. George A. Frederick in his long life of eighty-one years never had to complain of lack of employment or lack of appreciation."
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
with a practice in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, where his most prominent commission was the Baltimore City Hall
Baltimore City Hall
Baltimore City Hall is the official seat of government of the City of Baltimore. City Hall houses the offices of the mayor and those of the Baltimore City Council. The building also hosts the city comptroller, some city departments and chambers of the Baltimore City Council...
(1867–75), awarded him when he was only twenty-one.
Baltimore youth
George Frederick was born on December 16, 1842, to GermanGermans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
immigrants from Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
that settled in Baltimore. As a child his parents called him Volishis Georg, but before entering his apprenticeship he Americanized his name to George Aloysius, remaining George A. Frederick for the rest of his life. His father was employed as a clerk and supported seven children: George, Mary, Alphonse Joseph, Wilhemena, Anna, Catherine, and Cecelia. Alphonse would become a Sulpician priest at St. Charles College
St. Charles College, Maryland
St. Charles College was a seminary college in Catonsville, Maryland, originally from Ellicott City, Maryland.- 1776:Charles Carroll of Carrollton signs the Declaration of Independence for Maryland. One of the wealthiest men in the Americas, Carroll staked his fortune on the American Revolution...
in Catonsville
Catonsville, Maryland
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of , all of it land.-Demographics:In 2010 Catonsville had a population of 41,567...
, taking the name Reverend Joseph A. Frederick. The German Catholic roots nurtured in George's youth would influence the work he accepted throughout his career. He was educated at the Christian Brothers
Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools
The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools is a Roman Catholic religious teaching congregation, founded in France by Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle and now based in Rome...
School in Baltimore until 1858 when he was accepted as an apprentice in Lind & Murdoch's architecture firm of Baltimore. Without formal architectural schools, apprenticeship was the most common way to enter the building profession. For the next four years he worked under this firm and had some experience also with Niernsee
John Rudolph Niernsee
John Rudolph Niernsee was an American architect, the head architect for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. He was born as Johann Rudolph Niernsee in Vienna, Austria and immigrated to the United States in 1837, at age 22...
& Neilson of Baltimore.
Constructing Baltimore's City Hall
Baltimore City Council
The Baltimore City Council is the legislative branch that governs the City of Baltimore and its nearly 700,000 citizens. Baltimore has fourteen single-member City Council districts and representatives are elected for a four-year term. To qualify for a position on the Council, a person must be...
arrangements for a new City Hall
Baltimore City Hall
Baltimore City Hall is the official seat of government of the City of Baltimore. City Hall houses the offices of the mayor and those of the Baltimore City Council. The building also hosts the city comptroller, some city departments and chambers of the Baltimore City Council...
, with a budget estimated at $1,000,000, as the most enticing public project. The first competition to plan City Hall was in 1860, but the winner, William T. Marshall, fled from Baltimore during the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The second City Hall competition failed to elicit any entrants as the chaos of army movement to and from Gettysburg
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg , was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War, it is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac...
overwhelmed the city. Finally, a July 1, 1864, deadline was set for the third and final competition. At the age of twenty-one, Frederick submitted a design and beat out the more experienced bidders for the commission. Mayor Chapman and City Council summoned Frederick on September 18, 1865, to explain his plans and make any corrections. After doing so Frederick was commissioned as architect for City Hall on a two percent commission, paid monthly as work progressed. His plan was in the French Renaissance style
Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...
of the Second Empire, capped by a cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
; the latter is thought to be inspired by the construction of the United States Capitol
United States Capitol
The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...
building dome begun in 1856. Frederick's design looked to the new additions to the Palais du Louvre
Palais du Louvre
The Louvre Palace , on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, is a former royal palace situated between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois...
, completed under Hector Lefuel
Hector Lefuel
Hector-Martin Lefuel was a French historicist architect, whose most familiar work was the completion of the Palais du Louvre, including the reconstruction of the Pavillon de Flore after a disastrous fire.He was the son of Alexandre Henry Lefuel , an entrepreneurial speculative builder established...
in 1857, and well publicized to professionals and architects alike through engravings, lithographs and description; its high Mansard roof
Mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...
s, bold corner pavilions, richly framed dormers are reflected in Frederick's design for City Hall, above which rises the central dome, 227 feet (69.2 m) high, above an interior rotunda 119 feet (36.3 m) high. Twin interior courts provided every room with natural light. It was constructed with Baltimore County
Baltimore County, Maryland
Baltimore County is a county located in the northern part of the US state of Maryland. In 2010, its population was 805,029. It is part of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. Its county seat is Towson. The name of the county was derived from the barony of the Proprietor of the Maryland...
marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
(also referred to as Beaver Dam Marble) and Falls Road bluestone
Bluestone
Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including:*a feldspathic sandstone in the U.S. and Canada;*limestone in the Shenandoah Valley in the U.S...
. Baltimore carpenter J.M. Sudsberg designed and carved the doors bearing the seal of Baltimore
Seal of Baltimore, Maryland
The Seal of Baltimore is the official government emblem of the City of Baltimore, Maryland in the United States. The current seal was adopted for use in 1827. The seal is in the shape of an ellipse with the image of the Battle Monument featured in its centre...
and Battle Monument
Battle Monument
The Battle Monument, located on Calvert Street between Fayette and Lexington Streets in Baltimore, Maryland, commemorates the Battle of Baltimore and honors those who died during the month of September 1814 during the War of 1812...
. Remarkably, the building was designed to be fireproof, the first municipal building so built in the nation. The Building Committee appointed him consulting architect in 1867, and as with many of his other projects, Frederick remained involved throughout the construction of his plans.
On October 18 of that year the cornerstone
Cornerstone
The cornerstone concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.Over time a cornerstone became a ceremonial masonry stone, or...
was laid. Though an address by the Hon. J.H.B. Latrobe and a Masonic cornerstone-laying ceremony provided a spectacle to draw the crowds to the cornerstone laying ceremony, The Sun
The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries....
believed that the small crowd of onlookers represented the populace's view that a new City Hall at $1,000,000 was an unnecessary expenditure when economic strains from the war still crippled the city. In the summer of 1868 The Sun's fears were realized. The entirety of the Building Committee was forced to resign after charges of fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
revealed that they did not choose the lowest bidding contractors for marble, brick, lumber, and cement. Frederick was partly to blame for the brick contract. He used the term "common red" brick on his list of materials needed for the structure, when in fact no red bricks were used. Not knowing this, the Building Committee paid $8,188 for unneeded red bricks. Construction went on despite this setback. The new Building Committee included three mechanics to provide expertise and prevent a similar mistake. The building was finished in 1875, and to the surprise of the municipality, cost only $2,271,135.64 out of a total appropriation of $2,500,000 (the budget was expanded as construction progressed). The Building Committee and Frederick were seen as heroes for leaving $228,864.36 as a surplus to the city. A grand ceremony handing over the new City Hall from the Building Committee to Latrobe, representing the people of Baltimore, took place on October 26, 1875. Governor James Black Groome
James Black Groome
James Black Groome , a member of the United States Democratic Party, was the 36th Governor of Maryland in the United States from 1874 to 1876...
headed the procession, followed by the two regiments from Fort McHenry
Fort McHenry
Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, Maryland, is a star-shaped fort best known for its role in the War of 1812, when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack by the British navy in Chesapeake Bay...
, civic and trade groups of the city, and the Baltimore Fire Department.
House of Correction corruption
Governor Groome recognized the talent of an architect that could take on such a large undertaking and stay under budget. As a member of the state Board of Public Works, he quickly hired Frederick even before the completion of City Hall. Unfortunately for Groome, Frederick's notoriety in state projects came from grossly exceeding appropriations rather than finishing with a surplus. He was commissioned as architect for the House of CorrectionMaryland House of Correction
The Maryland House of Correction, nicknamed "The Cut" or "The House", was a Maryland Department of Corrections state maximum security prison in an unincorporated area in Maryland. Most of its territory was in Anne Arundel County, while portions were in Howard County. The prison opened in 1879 and...
in Jessup
Jessup, Maryland
Jessup is an unincorporated town and census-designated place in Howard County, Maryland and Anne Arundel County, Maryland. The population was 7,865 at the 2000 census. The center of population of Maryland is located in Jessup. It was the location of Maryland House of Correction, which was one of...
, Anne Arundel County, in 1875. Though not related to Frederick's actions, the Board of Public Works came under scrutiny in their management of this project. On July 17, 1875 the individual members of the Board of Public Works—Governor James Black Groome, Treasurer Barnes Compton
Barnes Compton
Barnes Compton was a wealthy planter who became a politician at the state level before the Civil War. He was appointed as Maryland State Treasurer, serving 1872-1885. He was elected to the US House of Representatives from the fifth congressional district of Maryland...
, and Comptroller Levin Woolford—filed suits of libel against Charles C. and Albert K. Fulton, proprietors of the Baltimore American
Baltimore News-American
The Baltimore News-American was a Baltimore, Maryland, broadsheet newspaper with a continuous lineage of more than two hundred years of Baltimore newspapers. Its final edition was published on May 27, 1986.-History:...
, claiming $20,000 each in damages. The conflict originated in a letter to the editor and follow-up article published in the American on June 26 and June 28, 1875. Both charged the overseers of the new House of Correction in Jessup with mismanagement at best, political corruption at worst.
After the officials filed their suits against the Fultons, the case was settled in open court on February 17, 1876. The Hagerstown Mail chastised the Board for failing to be open to public criticism, a requirement of American officeholders. A day after the court agreement, the Baltimore Sun reported that the Board of Public Works was expected to petition for an extra $200,000 over the $250,000 appropriation in order to complete the House of Correction as planned. Though optimistic at staying on budget in 1876, Comptroller Woolford’s 1877 Annual Report recognized that nearly the whole of the budget had been spent and “a considerable sum will be necessary to furnish the building and provide heat, water and light, so as to fit the institution for the reception of prisoners.” That considerable sum was expected to total $25,000 in 1878 and another $86,000 in 1879.
Repairs to the State House
Not deterred by the overspending, or at least not blaming it on Frederick, the Board hired him again in 1877 to design the repairs to the State HouseMaryland State House
The Maryland State House is located in Annapolis and is the oldest state capitol in continuous legislative use, dating to 1772. It houses the Maryland General Assembly and offices of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor. The capitol has the distinction of being topped by the largest wooden dome in...
in Annapolis
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...
. Frederick was likely an apprentice to Lind & Murdoch when they worked on the octagonal library in the State House in 1858. In 1876 Governor Groome signed into law an act appropriating $32,000 for the repairs. After a year of delays, Frederick was finally instructed to contract with various builders in April 1877. Once work began, Frederick and the Board quickly realized that the building was in much worse condition than imagined. The cellar was too small to hold a heater, the floors had settled unevenly and were unsafe, and the roof was covered with tin which leaked and rotted the wood underneath. In fact, the American Architect and Building News reported that as Frederick worked on the repairs he discovered that the roof had been renewed three times, but each time the old shingles had been left underneath. The architect later commented "that under such conditions the State House had not resolved itself into a holocaust was a surprise to the architects when employed and of necessity made familiar with such surroundings." Once the building was stripped to address these repairs and install heating, it needed to be plastered and painted. Though the original intention had been to preserve the Senate Chamber and other historic rooms in their original Revolutionary
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
appearance, as Groome testified on behalf of the Board of Public Works, having redone the entire building it would seem awkward to simply put back the old furniture. "We could have finished in a plain, simple and Quaker-like way," he said, "But...if we did the work slovenly and in a plain manner, we did not think we would be justified in exceeding the appropriation."
And they certainly exceeded the appropriation. The budget of $32,000 more than tripled to $111,388.29. In 1878 the House of Delegates
Maryland House of Delegates
The Maryland House of Delegates is the lower house of the General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland, and is composed of 141 Delegates elected from 47 districts. The House chamber is located in the state capitol building on State Circle in Annapolis...
appointed a Select Committee to Investigate the Repairs upon the State House. They heard testimony from the Board of Public Works, Frederick, and all contractors involved in the repairs. After concluding that it was not the 1876 Legislature's fault for appropriating so little money—they had no way of knowing the extent of the building's damage—and pardoning the Board of Public Works for simply insuring the safety of elected officials, the Select Committee placed blame squarely on the architect, George Frederick. While the government officials were not to blame for failing to realize the magnitude of the repairs until the building was torn apart, Frederick should not have put in such a low bid. The Committee questioned both the Board and Frederick on the 5% commission for the project, implying that he added costs in order to raise his compensation. Frederick later claimed that he worked harder on the State House project than any other in his life. As with the House of Correction, Frederick made sure his contractors were paid in full for their time and materials. The architect himself, held by a verbal agreement rather than written contract as was common in his profession, never received payment for working on the State House.
Return to Baltimore
Rightfully dissatisfied with these experiences, Frederick did not work again with the state government. He had married Mary E. Everist in 1865, and their first and only child, Katherine, was born in 1876. Privately funded projects closer to their home in Baltimore formed the bulk of his employment over the next twenty years. His previous projects in Baltimore included Hollins MarketHollins Market
Hollins Market is the name of the oldest existing public market building in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. It is a contributing property to the Union Square-Hollins Market Historic District....
; Gottschalk, Donnell and German Correspondent buildings; Baltimore City College
Baltimore City College
The Baltimore City College , also referred to as The Castle on the Hill, historically as The College, and most commonly City, is a public high school in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. The City College curriculum includes the International Baccalaureate Programme and emphasizes study in the classics...
; Baltimore City Hall; the Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
Monument; and the Abell Building. The Abell Building warehouses were known for their remarkable combination of materials (Baltimore brick, bluestone, white marble, and terra-cotta trim) and styles (Neo-Grec
Neo-Grec
Neo-Grec is a term referring to late manifestations of Neoclassicism, early Neo-Renaissance now called the Greek Revival style, which was popularized in architecture, the decorative arts, and in painting during France's Second Empire, or the reign of Napoleon III, a period that lasted...
and Italianate). He planned the Rennert Hotel on Fayette Street in 1885. The U.S. Marine Hospital in Baltimore was also a work of Frederick.
Two notable residences designed by Frederick were the Bauernschmidt House and Cylburn
Cylburn Arboretum
Cylburn Arboretum is a city park with arboretum and gardens, located at 4915 Greenspring Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland. It is open daily without charge....
. The former, located at Broadway and North Avenue, was the home of a Baltimore German American beer baron John Bauernschmidt. Frederick designed Cylburn in 1863, his first year out of apprenticeship, but the Civil War interrupted its construction. Industrialist Jesse Tyson originally planned the summer home for his mother as a retreat from the heat of the inner city, but the delay meant that the home was instead used to welcome his new bride. Cylburn was not completed until 1889, the year Jesse, in his sixties, married nineteen year old debutante Edyth Johns. The couple decorated their lavish Italianate and Second Empire style home with imported European furniture, no doubt to impress high society summer visitors from Baltimore.
In contrast to these commercial buildings and private homes, Frederick also maintained a relationship with the roots of his family: German Catholics. Greisenheim, a home for aged Germans, Baltimore's German Orphan Asylum and the German Correspondent (German language newspaper) building reflected ties to his parents' homeland. The last of these was completed in 1869 on a prominent corner lot on Baltimore Avenue; it had three main floors and an attic behind French mansards, with a marble-clad facing with Venetian-Gothic windows. Frederick also designed a number of buildings for the Archdiocese of Baltimore. His churches include St. Pius, St. James and St. John's Church, St. James the Less
St. James the Less Roman Catholic Church
St. James the Less Roman Catholic Church, also known as St. James and St. John's Roman Catholic Church, is a historic Roman Catholic church located at Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is a High Victorian Gothic influenced brick structure with Romanesque Revival overtones built 1865-67. It...
, and Fourteen Holy Martyrs. St. James and St. John's, a Redemptorist church, catered to the neighborhood German Catholics. Whiteford Hall, a school at St. Joseph's Monastery, was completed in 1890. St. Joseph's Hospital
St. Joseph Medical Center
St. Joseph Medical Center is a 300-bed regional medical center in Towson, Maryland operated by Catholic Health Initiatives.-External links:*...
, now relocated in Towson
Towson, Maryland
Towson is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 55,197 at the 2010 census...
, was also a Catholic enterprise finished in 1871. In 1890, he entered a competition to plan Catholic University
The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America is a private university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, but was beat by fellow Baltimore architects Baldwin & Pennington.
Despite his aversion to state commissions, Frederick continued to work for Baltimore City as the architect for the Baltimore Park Commission, a position he held from 1863-1895. He worked on projects in Druid Hill Park
Druid Hill Park
Druid Hill Park is a urban park in northwest Baltimore, Maryland. Its boundaries are marked by Druid Park Drive , Swann Drive and Reisterstown Road , and the Jones Falls Expressway...
, Patterson Park
Patterson Park
Patterson Park is a public park in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States. The park is bordered by East Baltimore Street on the north, Eastern Avenue on the south, South Patterson Park Avenue on the west, and South Linwood Avenue on the east...
and Federal Hill Park. Baltimore's Druid Hill Park, purchased for the city in 1860, was designed by Howard Daniels, Baltimore Park Commissioners' landscape designer and John H. B. Latrobe, who designed the gateways to the park and the alterations made to the early-19th century Nicholas Rogers mansion that already stood in the site. Druid Hill Park ranks with Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, begun in 1859, and Fairmount Park
Fairmount Park
Fairmount Park is the municipal park system of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It consists of 63 parks, with , all overseen by the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, successor to the Fairmount Park Commission in 2010.-Fairmount Park proper:...
in Philadelphia as the oldest landscaped public parks in the United States. Among Frederick's playful structures for Druid Hill in Moorish and Chinese styles was the Chinese Station erected in 1864 and the Moorish Station, which were stops on a narrow-gauge railroad that once wound through the park.
Frederick represented Maryland in the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia by designing a building to represent the state. In 1893 he planned the Maryland Exposition Building at the Chicago World's Fair
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
.
The retired architect
Frederick retired around 1903. He had been a charter member of the Baltimore Chapter of the American Institute of ArchitectsAmerican Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to support the architecture profession and improve its public image...
since 1868, and was given a Fellowship in 1877. Later in his career he sat on the Board of Directors. In 1913 he recorded his Recollections of Baltimore architects from the mid- to late nineteenth century for the A.I.A. On February 24, 1923, he lost his wife of fifty-eight years to a brain hemorrhage. A year later, on August 17, he died of the same cause and was interred in New Cathedral Cemetery. He was survived by his daughter Katherine, brother Rev. Joseph Frederick, and sister Miss Philomena Frederick. Though he witnessed the Baltimore Fire of 1904
Great Baltimore Fire
The Great Baltimore Fire raged in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, on Sunday, February 7, and Monday, February 8, 1904. 1,231 firefighters were required to bring the blaze under control...
destroy many of his creations, one obituary proclaimed that "Mr. George A. Frederick in his long life of eighty-one years never had to complain of lack of employment or lack of appreciation."