Charles Alling Gifford
Born(1860-07-17)July 17, 1860
Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedMay 3, 1937(1937-05-03) (aged 76)
Atlantic City, New Jersey, U.S.
Alma materStevens Institute of Technology
OccupationArchitect
Spouse
Helen M. Conyngham
​
​
(m. 1890; died 1928)​
PracticeGifford & Bates
BuildingsMount Washington Hotel
Jekyll Island Clubhouse Annex
Old Glynn County Courthouse

Charles Alling Gifford (July 17, 1860 – May 3, 1937)[1] was an American architect and a partner in the New York City firm of Gifford & Bates. He is best remembered for his resort hotels, but also designed houses, churches, and five armories for the New Jersey National Guard.

Biography

The son of John Archer Gifford (1831–1924) and Mary Jane (née Alling) Gifford (1835–1909),[2] Charles Alling Gifford was born in Newark, New Jersey on July 17, 1860.[2] He attended the Latin School in Newark, and graduated in 1881 from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.[3]

Gifford worked for the architectural firm of McKim, Meade & White for about three years, before establishing his own firm in Newark.[4] He became a member of the Architectural League of New York in 1881,[5] and an associate of the American Institute of Architects in 1901.[5] By 1889, he had opened an office at 50 Broadway, Manhattan.[6] He formed a partnership with William A. Bates in 1900,[7] an architect who had made a reputation designing houses in Bronxville, New York.[8] In 1903, the offices of Gifford & Bates were located at 18 East 17th Street, Manhattan.[5]

Gifford served in the New Jersey National Guard, 1890–1899, retiring with the rank of Major.[4] He designed National Guard armory buildings for five cities in the state: Jersey City, Paterson, Camden, Newark, and Trenton.[4]

Federal law required able-bodied male college students to undergo military instruction for a state's reserve militia.[9] Gifford designed a Colonial Revival armory/gymnasium for Rutgers College, the gift of brewer John Holme Ballantine:[10]

A generous Trustee of the College has during the past year provided a superbly appointed drill-room and armory. This drill-room affords an unobstructed space 100 by 60 feet, to which is added a large equipment-room and offices for the instructor. [T]here is now under the capable direction of a United States officer, a battalion of 150 young men in training to serve the State in almost any military capacity should occasion arise. This building is devoted also to the purpose of general Physical Culture.[11]

Ballentine's daughter Alice married lawyer Henry Young Jr. in 1899, and the father-of-the-bride gave the couple a 100 acre (40.47 hectare) tract of mountainous land in Bernardsville, New Jersey as a wedding gift.[12] Four years later, Gifford designed a country house for the Youngs, "Brushwood," a 30-room Colonial Revival mansion overlooking Pleasant Valley.[13]

Gifford designed the New Jersey Building for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. This was a replica of the Ford Mansion in Morristown, New Jersey, General George Washington's headquarters, Winter 1779–1780.[14] The building was used to promote business and tourism in the state, and served as headquarters for New Jersey visitors to the 1893 Fair. A decade later, Gifford designed another replica of the Ford Mansion for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. After the 1904 Fair, the New Jersey Building was relocated to Kirkwood, Missouri, and converted into apartments.[15]

The Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire is Gifford's best-known work.[16] The 1902 Gilded Age hotel is a National Historic Landmark.[17]

Several of Gifford's clients were members of the Jekyll Island Club, a private hunting resort in Glynn County, Georgia. Although never a member himself, he made multiple alterations to the Clubhouse,[18] and designed the Sans Souci Apartments (1896), Pulitzer Cottage (1897–1898, burned 1951), Mistletoe Cottage (1900), and the Jekyll Island Clubhouse Annex (1901).[18] All but Pulitzer Cottage survive, and are contributing properties in the Jekyll Island Club National Historic Landmark District.[19] Gifford also designed the nearby Old Glynn County Courthouse (1906-1907) in Brunswick, Georgia.[18]

Selected works

Mount Washington Hotel (1900–1902), Bretton Woods, New Hampshire

New Jersey armories

4th Regiment Armory Arch, relocated to Pershing Field, Jersey City

Glynn County, Georgia

Old Glynn County Courthouse (1906–1907), Brunswick
  • San Souci Apartments, Jekyll Island, Georgia, 1896. A six-unit condominium, J. P. Morgan owned one of the units
  • Joseph Pulitzer Cottage, Jekyll Island, Georgia, 1897–1898.[38] Burned by arsonists and demolished 1951
  • Mistletoe Cottage, Jekyll Island, Georgia, 1900. Built for Henry Kirke Porter
  • Jekyll Island Clubhouse Annex, Jekyll Island, Georgia, 1901–1903
    • Four 4-bedroom condominium apartments on the first story; the same on the second story; twenty guest bedrooms on the third story; servant bedrooms on the fourth story[39]
  • Old Glynn County Courthouse, G Street, Brunswick, Georgia, 1906–1907. A new courthouse was built behind the old one in 1991.[18] The old courthouse now houses Glynn County Probate Court.[40]

Personal

Conyngham Manor (1897), Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

On December 10, 1890, Gifford married Helen M. Conyngham (1868–1928),[2] the daughter of Col. Charles Miner Conyngham and Helen Hunter Turner Conyngham of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.[2] The Giffords had five children: Alice Conyngham, Charles Conyngham (1895–1962), John Archer, Herbert Cammamann, and Donald Stanton.[2]

Gifford designed a Wilkes-Barre mansion for his father-in-law, "Conyngham Manor." It is now the Conyngham Student Center of Wilkes College.[41]

Gifford and his family lived at 60 Park Place in Newark. He later designed and built a country house in Summit, New Jersey.[4] Helen Conyngham Gifford died May 9, 1928.

Gifford retired to their seashore home, at 7 South Brighton Avenue, Atlantic City, New Jersey.[42] He died there on May 3, 1937,[1] and is interred at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Newark, New Jersey.

References

  1. 1 2 "CHARLES A. GIFFORD, RETIRED ARCHITECT; Designed New Jersey Buildings for Two World's Fairs—Dies in Atlantic City at 76" (PDF). The New York Times. May 4, 1937. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Francis Bazley Lee, ed., Genealogical and Memorial History of the State of New Jersey (Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1910), p. 159.
  3. ↑ Herman W. Knox., ed. Who's Who in New York. Seventh Edition (1917–1918). (NY: Who's Who Publications, Inc., 1918): 414.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 John William Leonard, ed., Men and Things: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporaries, Volume 1 (New York City: L. R. Hamersly & Company, 1908), p. 978.
  5. 1 2 3 Florence N. Levy, ed., American Art Annual, Volume 4 (American Art Annual Inc., 1903), p. 110.
  6. ↑ Catalogue of the Fifth Annual Exhibition of the Architectural League of New York (New York: Architectural League of New York, 1889), p. 34.
  7. ↑ James Ward and Dennis Steadman Francis, Architects in Practice, New York City, 1900–1940 (J & D Associates, 1989), p. 28.
  8. ↑ Loretta Hoagland, Bronxville's Turn-of-the-Century Art Colony (Lawrence Park Hilltop Association, 1992), pp. 195–197.
  9. ↑ "The Robert F. Ballantine Gymnasium," State Board of Visitors, and Trustees of Rutgers College in New Jersey. Thirty-Sixth Annual Report of Rutgers Scientific School, the State College for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, New Brunswick, N.J., for the Fiscal Year ending October 31, 1900. (Trenton, New Jersey: John L. Murphy Publishing Co. 1901), pp. 42, 87; ill. opp. p. 97.
  10. ↑ The American Architect and Building News, March 17, 1894, p. 131.
  11. ↑ Twenty-Seventh Annual Report of Rutgers Scientific School, The State College for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanical Arts, for the Year 1891 (Trenton, N.J.: John L. Murphy Publishing Company, 1892), p. 148.
  12. ↑ Brushwood, from Janet Simon Inc.
  13. ↑ The Warren Estate, from mansionsinmay.
  14. ↑ New Jersey Building (1893), from Library of Congress.
  15. ↑ Dorothy Daniels Birk, The World Came to St. Louis: A Visit to the 1904 World's Fair (Wheeling, WV: Bethany Press, 1979).
  16. ↑ Mount Washington Hotel to be sold The Lewiston Journal – May 20, 1988
  17. ↑ "Mount Washington Hotel". National Park Service.
  18. 1 2 3 4 Wilber W. Caldwell, The Courthouse and the Depot: The Architecture of Hope in an Age of Despair (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2001), pp. 261–263.
  19. ↑ Barefoot, Patricia (2000). Brunswick: The City by the Sea. Arcadia Publishing. p. 48. ISBN 9780738506425. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  20. ↑ Peter Hastings Falk, ed., The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Volume 2, 1876–1913 (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1989), p. 214.
  21. ↑ Architecture and Building vol. 24, no. 23 (June 6, 1896), (New York, William T Comstock), p. 273, opp. p. 266.
  22. ↑ Central Presbyterian Church, from Facebook.
  23. ↑ "Some Rooms in a Wilkesbarre Residence," The Art Amateur, vol. 43, no. 3 (August 1900), (New York: J. W. Van Oost, publisher), pp. 71–73.
  24. ↑ The Architectural Review, vol. 9, no. 9 (September 1902), pp. 167–168.
  25. ↑ Markland House, from VisitStAugustine.
  26. ↑ Schellenbaum, Amy. "The Extraordinary History of 1902's Mount Washington Hotel … and the 'Poor Fool' Who Built It". Curbed.
  27. ↑ 134 Ballantine Road, Bernardsville, NJ, from Long and Foster Real Estate.
  28. ↑ Scientific American Building Monthly, vol. 38, no. (November 1904), pp. 100–101, 108.
  29. ↑ Gould's Stables, Turtle Bay, from ForgottenNewYork.
  30. ↑ "Fourth Regiment Armory," Report of the Adjudant-General of the State of New Jersey for the Year Ending October 31, 1906 (Somerville, NJ: Unionist-Gazette Printing House, 1907), p. 118.
  31. ↑ Architecture and Building, vol. 24, no. 3 (January 18, 1896), (New York, William T Comstock), opp. p. 26.
  32. ↑ "Fifth Regiment Armory," Report of the Adjudant-General of the State of New Jersey for the Year Ending October 31, 1906 (Somerville, NJ: Unionist-Gazette Printing House, 1907), p. 119.
  33. ↑ "Third Regiment Armory," Report of the Adjudant-General of the State of New Jersey for the Year Ending October 31, 1906 (Somerville, NJ: Unionist-Gazette Printing House, 1907), p. 117.
  34. ↑ Armories, from Encyclopedia of Philadelphia.
  35. ↑ "First Regiment Armory," Report of the Adjudant-General of the State of New Jersey for the Year Ending October 31, 1906 (Somerville, NJ: Unionist-Gazette Printing House, 1907), p. 115.
  36. ↑ "Second Regiment Armory," Report of the Adjudant-General of the State of New Jersey for the Year Ending October 31, 1906 (Somerville, NJ: Unionist-Gazette Printing House, 1907), p. 116.
  37. ↑ Trenton Civic Center Fire Destroys City's Tax Bills, The New York Times, July 17, 1975.
  38. ↑ Real Estate Record and Builders Guide, vol. 59, no. 1,525 (June 5, 1897), New York, C. W. Sweet, p. 970.
  39. ↑ The National Register of Historic Places Supplement 1974 (National Park Service, 1972), p. 120.
  40. ↑ Glynn County Probate Court
  41. ↑ Conyngham Student Center, from Historic Campus Architecture Report.
  42. ↑ American Institute of Architects, Membership List (AIA, 1930), p. 30.
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