Biography

He was the designer of the Wolcott Hotel

Wolcott Hotel

The Wolcott Hotel, New York was built in the 1900s at 4 West 31st Street near 5th Avenue by William C. Dewey and designed by architect John H. Duncan. Duncan used a bold Beaux-Arts style combined with French Neo Classicism...

. One of the most famous architects in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, his popularity rose after being selected as the architect of what is now Grant's Tomb

Grant's Tomb

General Grant National Memorial , better known as Grant's Tomb, is a mausoleum containing the bodies of Ulysses S. Grant , American Civil War General and 18th President of the United States, and his wife, Julia Dent Grant...

, another "reconstruction" of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (Greek Ionia).

Another of Duncan's most famous works is the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch in Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn NY, often referred to as Brooklyn's version of the Arc de Triomphe.

Duncan also contributed townhouses on Manhattan's Upper East side. One marvelous example is 21 E 84st (with its neighbors, 1132 and 1134 Madison Avenue), still intact today with much of the original interior and exterior. "A brick and terra-cotta terrace (English-style grouping of jointly designed townhouses), now sullied by unhappy storefronts on the avenue. But look up at the frieze"

He also designed Walhall, a "great estate" in Greenwich Ct. Although the main house no longer
exists, an outbuilding intended eventually for the superintendent still exists and is a
private residence today.