Richard Morris Hunt - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Richard Morris Hunt was an American architect of the nineteenth century and a preeminent figure in the history of American architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

. Hunt was, according to design critic Paul Goldberger

Paul Goldberger

Paul Goldberger is the Architecture Critic for The New Yorker, where since 1997 he has written the magazine's celebrated "Sky Line" column. He also holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School in New York City...

writing in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, "American architecture's first, and in many ways its greatest, statesman." Aside from Hunt's sculpting of the face of 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...

, including designs for the facade and Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

, the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty

Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...

and many Fifth Avenue mansions lost to the wrecking ball, Hunt founded both the American Institute of Architects

American 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...

and the Municipal Art Society

Municipal Art Society

The Municipal Art Society of New York, founded in 1893, is a non-profit membership organization that fights for intelligent urban planning, design and preservation through education, dialogue and advocacy in New York City....

Life and career

Born at Brattleboro, Vermont

Brattleboro, Vermont

Brattleboro, originally Brattleborough, is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States, located in the southeast corner of the state, along the state line with New Hampshire. The population was 12,046 at the 2010 census...

, Hunt was the son of Jane Maria Leavitt, born to an influential family

Thaddeus Leavitt

Thaddeus Leavitt was a Suffield, Connecticut, merchant who invented an early cotton gin, as well as joining with seven other Connecticut men to purchase most of the three-million-plus acres of the Western Reserve lands in Ohio from the government of Connecticut, land on which some of his family...

of Suffield, Connecticut

Suffield, Connecticut

Suffield is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It had once been within the boundaries of Massachusetts. The town is located in the Connecticut River Valley with the town of Enfield neighboring to the east. In 1900, 3,521 people lived in Suffield; and in 1910, 3,841. As of the...

, and Hon. Jonathan Hunt

Jonathan Hunt (Vermont Representative)

General Jonathan Hunt was a member of the United States House of Representatives and the prominent Hunt family of Vermont. He was born in Vernon, Windham County, Vermont, and graduated from Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1807. Afterwards, Hunt studied law and was admitted to the bar...

, a U.S. congressman whose own father was the lieutenant governor of Vermont, and scion of the wealthy and prominent Hunt family of Vermont. Richard Morris Hunt was the brother of the Boston painter William Morris Hunt

William Morris Hunt

William Morris Hunt , American painter, was born at Brattleboro, Vermont to Jane Maria Hunt and Hon. Jonathan Hunt, who raised one of the preeminent families in American art...

, and the photographer and lawyer Leavitt Hunt

Leavitt Hunt

Col. Leavitt Hunt was a Harvard-educated attorney and photography pioneer who was one of the first people to photograph the Middle East...

. (Hunt was named for Lewis Richard Morris, a family relation, who was a U.S. Congressman from Vermont and the nephew of Gouverneur Morris

Gouverneur Morris

Gouverneur Morris , was an American statesman, a Founding Father of the United States, and a native of New York City who represented Pennsylvania in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation. Morris was also an author of large sections of the...

, an author of large parts of the U.S. Constitution.)

Following the early death of his father, Hunt's mother took the family to Europe, where they remained for more than a decade, first in Switzerland and later in Paris. Hunt began his education at the Boston Latin School

Boston Latin School

The Boston Latin School is a public exam school founded on April 23, 1635, in Boston, Massachusetts. It is both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States....

. Following Hunt's 1843 graduation from Boston Latin, young Hunt left with his family for Europe, where he studied art, and where he was encouraged to pursue architecture by his older brother William, a painter, and by his mother, who had been denied the chance to paint herself.

Hunt later entered the Paris atelier

Studio

A studio is an artist's or worker's workroom, or the catchall term for an artist and his or her employees who work within that studio. This can be for the purpose of architecture, painting, pottery , sculpture, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, radio or television...

of 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 1846. The aspiring architect Hunt became the first American to attend the École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...

in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. "Hunt was the first American to be admitted to the school of architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts – the finest school of architecture in the world – and the subsequent importance of his influence on the architecture of his own country can hardly be overstated," writes historian David McCullough

David McCullough

David Gaub McCullough is an American author, narrator, historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award....

.

Hunt's mentor Lefuel later permitted him to supervise work on the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

museum, which Lefuel and Louis Visconti were renovating for Napoleon III, as well as to design the Pavillon de la Bibliothèque (“Library Pavilion”), prominently situated opposite the Palais-Royal. Hunt would later regale aspiring young architect Louis Sullivan

Louis Sullivan

Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...

with stories of his work on the New Louvre in Lefuel's atelier libre.

After his return in 1855, Hunt founded the first American architectural school at his Tenth Street Studio Building

Tenth Street Studio Building

The Tenth Street Studio Building, constructed in New York City in 1857, was the first modern facility designed solely to serve the needs of artists...

(beginning with only four students), co-founded the American Institute of Architects

American Institute of Architects

and from 1888 to 1891 served as the Institute's third president, brought the first apartment building to Manhattan in a burst of scandal, and set a new ostentatious style of grand houses for the social elite and the eccentric, competitive new millionaires of the Gilded Age

Gilded Age

In United States history, the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post–Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their book The Gilded...

.

Hunt's greatest influence was his insistence that architects be treated, and paid, as legitimate and respected professionals equivalent to doctors and lawyers. He sued one of his early clients for non-payment of his five percent fee, which established an important legal precedent. One of his 1859 students at the Tenth Street Studio, William Robert Ware

William Robert Ware

William Robert Ware , born in Cambridge, Massachusetts into a family of the Unitarian clergy, was an American architect, author, and founder of two important American architectural schools....

, was deeply influenced by Hunt and went on to found the first two university programs in architecture: MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

in 1866, and Columbia

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York City, also known simply as GSAPP, is regarded as one of the most important and prestigious architecture schools in the world...

in 1881.

His extensive social connections in Newport

Newport, Rhode Island

Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...

among the richest Americans of his generation, were informed by his energy and good humor. Legend has it that while on a final walk-through of one of his Vanderbilt mansions, Hunt discovered a mysterious tent-like object in one of the ballrooms. Investigating, he found it was canvas covering a life-sized statue of himself, dressed in stonecutters' clothes, all carved in secret as a tribute by the gang of stonecutters working on the house. Vanderbilt permitted the statue to be placed on the roof of the mansion.

Most who came into contact with Hunt came away struck by the man. On their first meeting in 1869 Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

spoke of "one remarkable person new to me, Richard Hunt the architect. His conversation was spirited beyond any I remember, loaded with matter, and expressed with the vigour and fury of a member of the Harvard boat or ball club relating to the adventures of one of their matches; inspired, meantime, throughout, with fine theories of the possibilities of art."

Hunt's folksy manner, lack of pretense and unbridled enthusiasm led Emerson to gush, "I could only think of the immense advantage which a thinking soul possesses when horsed on a robust and vivacious temperament. The combination is so rare of an Irish labourer's nerve and elasticity with Winckelmann

Johann Joachim Winckelmann

Johann Joachim Winckelmann was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art...

's experience and cultivation as to fill one with immense hope of great results when he meets it in the New York of to-day."

Hunt designed New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

's Tribune Building, one of the earliest with an elevator, in 1873. Other buildings of note that Hunt designed include the Theological Library and Marquand Chapel in Princeton

Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

, the Scroll and Key building at Yale

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

, and the Fogg Museum of Art at Harvard

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. Until the Lenox Library, none of Hunt's American works were in the Beaux-Arts style with which he is associated. Late in his life he became involved in the Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

's World's Columbian Exposition

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...

in 1893, at which his Administration Building received the gold medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects

Royal Institute of British Architects

The Royal Institute of British Architects is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally.-History:...

.

In New York City, Hunt's handiwork can be seen on the austere pedestal of the Statue of Liberty

Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...

and on the elegant 5th Avenue facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

. The only one of Hunt's New York City buildings that has not been destroyed now houses Hostelling International – New York (formerly American Youth Hostels

American Youth Hostels

American Youth Hostels, Inc. is a 501 nonprofit membership organization founded in 1934 by Monroe W. Smith, whose formal name is Hostelling International USA . It is the American member of Hostelling International. It is incorporated in New York.Youth hostels offer inexpensive temporary...

) on the east blockfront of Amsterdam Avenue between 103rd and 104th Streets in Manhattan.The last surviving New York City building entirely by Hunt is the charity hospital he designed for the Association for the Relief of Respectable Aged Indigent Females (1883) on the east blockfront of Amsterdam Avenue between 103rd and 104th Streets in Manhattan. The red-brick building, which features dormer windows and a mansard roof similar to those Hunt used on his Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, was renovated in the late 20th century and is now a youth hostel.

Among the employees who worked in Hunt's firm was Franco-American architect and fellow Ecole des Beaux Arts graduate Emmanuel Louis Masqueray

Emmanuel Louis Masqueray

Emmanuel Louis Masqueray was a Franco-American preeminent figure in the history of American architecture, both as a gifted designer of landmark buildings and as an influential teacher of the profession of architecture.-Biography:...

when went on to be Chief of Design at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition

Louisiana Purchase Exposition

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the Saint Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States in 1904.- Background :...

in St. Louis. Hunt often employed sculptor Karl Bitter

Karl Bitter

Karl Theodore Francis Bitter was an Austrian-born United States sculptor best known for his architectural sculpture, memorials and residential work.- Life and career :...

to enrich his designs. Both Hunt and his frequent collaborator, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...

, were associated with the City Beautiful Movement

City Beautiful movement

The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy concerning North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of using beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. The movement, which was originally associated mainly with Chicago,...

, and Hunt was the first president of the Municipal Art Society

Municipal Art Society

that grew out of the movement. Nevertheless, Olmstead, an advocate of "naturalistic" architecture and landscape design famously clashed with Hunt in 1863 over Hunt's proposal for "Scholar's Gate", a formal entrance to 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...

at 60th Street and Fifth Avenue. According to Central Park historian Sarah Cedar Miller, Central Park Commissioner and influential New Yorker Andrew Haswell Green

Andrew Haswell Green

Andrew Haswell Green was a New York lawyer, city planner, civic leader and agitator for reform. Called by some historians a hundred years later "the 19th century Robert Moses," he held several offices and played important roles in many projects, including Riverside Drive, Morningside Park, Fort...

, was a major supporter of Hunt. When the park commissioners adopted Hunt's design, Olmstead and his partner Calvert Vaux

Calvert Vaux

Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....

protested and resigned their positions with the Central Park project. Hunt's plan for Scholar's Gate was never built and Olmstead and Vaux subsequently rejoined the project. Nevertheless, there were to be other reminders of Hunt in Central Park.

Hunt died in 1895 and was buried at the Common Burying Ground and Island Cemetery

Common Burying Ground and Island Cemetery

Common Burying Ground and Island Cemetery are a pair of separate cemeteries on Farewell and Warner Street in Newport, Rhode Island. Together they contain over 5,000 graves, including a colonial era slave cemetery and Jewish graves. The pair of cemeteries was added to the National Register of...

in Newport, Rhode Island

Newport, Rhode Island

. In 1898, 3 years after Hunt's death in Newport, the Municipal Art Society commissioned the Richard Morris Hunt Memorial, designed by sculptor Daniel Chester French

Daniel Chester French

Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor. His best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Life and career:...

and architect Bruce Price

Bruce Price

Bruce Price was the American architect of many of the Canadian Pacific Railway's Château-type stations and hotels...

. The memorial is installed in the wall of Central Park across Fifth Avenue from today’s Frick Museum at 70th Street. Following Hunt's death, his son Richard Howland Hunt

Richard Howland Hunt

Richard Howland Hunt was an American architect and member of the notable Hunt family of Vermont, who worked in partnership with his brother Joseph Howland Hunt in New York City, as Hunt & Hunt. The brothers were sons of the first American Beaux-Arts architect, Richard Morris Hunt...

took over the practice his father had established.

Among the many projects Richard Howland Hunt finished was the great entrance hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for which his father, a Metropolitan trustee, had made the initial sketches in 1894, having earlier designed the Museum's Fifth Avenue facade.

Residences

Everett-Dunn House, Tenafly, NJ, 1867 http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=7484
H. B. Hollins'
H. B. Hollins
Harry Bowly Hollins was an American financier, banker, and railroad magnate. He was responsible for organizing the banking and brokerage firm bearing his name, H.B. Hollins & Co. in 1878.-Life and business:...

Country Estate, "Meadow Farm", East Islip, NY
J.N.A. Griswold House, Newport, RI 1863–64
Marshall Field House, Prairie Avenue, Chicago, 1873
Henry Marquand House, NYC, 1881–84
James Pinchot House, Grey Towers
Grey Towers National Historic Site
Grey Towers National Historic Site, also known as Gifford Pinchot House or The Pinchot Institute, is located just off US 6 west of Milford, Pennsylvania, in Dingman Township...

, Milford, Pennsylvania 1884–86
William Borden House, Chicago, Illinois, 1884–89
Ogden Mills House, Fifth Avenue, NYC, 1885–87
Château de Montméry (Theodore Haviland), Ambazac, Haute Vienne (87), France, 1885
Archibald Rogers Estate
Archibald Rogers Estate
Archibald Rogers Estate, also known as "Crumwold," is a historic mansion located at Hyde Park in Dutchess County, New York. It was designed by noted New York architect Richard Morris Hunt and built between 1886 and 1889. It is a two story dwelling constructed of coursed Maine granite with...

, Hyde Park New York, 1886–89
William Kissam Vanderbilt
William Kissam Vanderbilt
William Kissam Vanderbilt was a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family. He managed railroads and was a horse breeder.-Biography:...

House, Marble House
Marble House
Marble House is one of the Gilded Age mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, now open to the public as a museum. It was designed by the architect Richard Morris Hunt, and said to be inspired by the Petit Trianon at Versailles . Grounds were designed by noted landscape architect Ernest W...

, Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...

, 1888–92
William Kissam Vanderbilt
William Kissam Vanderbilt
William Kissam Vanderbilt was a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family. He managed railroads and was a horse breeder.-Biography:...

, Residence, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, 1879–82.
J.R. Busk House, "Indian Springs", presently known as Wrentham House, Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...

, 1889–92
Ogden Goelet House, "Ochre Court
Ochre Court
Ochre Court is a large châteauesque mansion in Newport, Rhode Island.Commissioned by Ogden Goelet, it was built in 1892 and is one of the many famed mansions in Newport that served as summer residences for New York City's wealthy socialite class....

", Newport, Rhode Island, 1888–93
Oliver Belmont
Oliver Belmont
Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont was an American socialite and United States Representative from New York.- Biography :...

House, "Belcourt Castle
Belcourt Castle
Belcourt Castle is the former summer cottage of Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, located on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island. Begun in 1891 and completed in 1894, it was intended to be used for only six to eight weeks of the year...

", Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...

, 1891
Elbridge Gerry House, NYC, 1891–94 Newport, Rhode Island,
John Jacob Astor IV House, Fifth Avenue, NYC, 1891–95
Dorsheimer-Busk House, Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...

, 1890–93
George Washington Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt family
The Vanderbilt family is an American family of Dutch origin prominent during the Gilded Age. It started off with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthropy...

House, "Biltmore Estate
Biltmore Estate
Biltmore House is a Châteauesque-styled mansion near Asheville, North Carolina, built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895. It is the largest privately-owned home in the United States, at and featuring 250 rooms...

", the largest private mansion in America (pictured below) Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina. The City is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center , which is the world's largest active...

, 1890–
Cornelius Vanderbilt II
Cornelius Vanderbilt II
Cornelius Vanderbilt II was an American socialite, heir, businessman, and a member of the prominent United States Vanderbilt family....

house, "The Breakers
The Breakers
The Breakers is a Vanderbilt mansion located on Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island, United States on the Atlantic Ocean. It is a National Historic Landmark, a contributing property to the Bellevue Avenue Historic District, and is owned and operated by the Preservation Society of Newport...

", Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...

, 1892–95

Churches

St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Islip, Long Island, New York
Cathedral of All Souls
Cathedral of All Souls
The Cathedral of All Souls, also referred to as All Souls Cathedral, is an Episcopal cathedral located in Asheville, North Carolina, United States of America....

, Biltmore Village
Biltmore Village
Biltmore Village, formerly Best, is a small village that is now entirely in the city limits of Asheville, North Carolina. It is adjacent to the main entrance of the Biltmore Estate, built by George W. Vanderbilt, one of the heirs to the Vanderbilt family fortune. Once known as the town of Best,...

, Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina. The City is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center , which is the world's largest active...

Public buildings

Howland Cultural Center
Howland Cultural Center
The Howland Cultural Center, also known as Howland Library, is the former public library building of Beacon, New York, USA. It is located on Main Street in the city's downtown section, near Fishkill Creek....

(Howland Library), Beacon, NY, designed for Hunt's brother-in-law Joseph Howland
Joseph Howland
Joseph Howland was an American Union Army general, politician and philanthropist.-Early life:...

, Howland Cultural Center
Fogg Art Museum
Fogg Art Museum
The Fogg Museum, opened to the public in 1896, is the oldest of Harvard University's art museums. The Fogg joins the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum as part of the Harvard Art Museums....

, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1892–95 (demolished and replaced).
Administration Building, World's Columbian Exposition
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...

, Chicago, 1893
Clark Hall, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH
Virginia Hall (and other buildings) Hampton Institute (now Hampton University), Hampton, VA

Awards and honors

Honorary Doctorate, Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, Cambridge, Massachusetts (first architect to receive the honor)
Royal Gold Medal
Royal Gold Medal
The Royal Gold Medal for architecture is awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects on behalf of the British monarch, in recognition of an individual's or group's substantial contribution to international architecture....

, Royal Institute of British Architects
Royal Institute of British Architects
The Royal Institute of British Architects is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally.-History:...

, 1893 (first American architect to be so honored)
Honorary member, Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, France

External links