Duncan Candler
Born
Duncan Willson Candler

May 8, 1873
Brooklyn, New York, US
DiedNovember 12, 1949 (aged 76)
Salisbury, Connecticut, US
Alma materColumbia University
Academie des Beaux Arts
OccupationArchitect
BuildingsSkylands
The Eyrie
The Playhouse
Grace Dodge Hotel

Duncan Willson Candler (May 8, 1873 - November 12, 1949) was an American architect known for his various projects for Abby and John D. Rockefeller Jr. and the house Skylands for Edsel Ford.[1][2][3][4] Martha Stewart says Candler is "a genius who deserves a book."[5]

Early life

Candler was a native of Brooklyn, New York.[2] He was the son of Marcia Lillian Welch and Flamen Ball Candler, a lawyer with Winkle, Candler & Jay and president of the department of law at the Brooklyn Institute.[6][7][8] As a youth, he played competitive tennis with the Brooklyn Heights Tennis Club, gaining a reputation as one of the best players in the region.[9][10]

He attended Columbia University where he studied architecture, was a member of Delta Psi (St. Anthony Hall), and played tennis.[1][11][12] He graduated from Columbia in 1895, then attended the Academie des Beaux Arts in Paris, France, taking his exams and graduating in 1897.[1][2][13]

Around 1899, Candler and his parents moved to 50 5th Avenue in Manhattan.[14][8] However, Candler remained in Europe, studying architecture and traveling until October 1900.[15]

Professional life

By 1902, Candler was a practicing architect with offices on 5th Avenue in New York City.[16][17] He was elected to the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in April 1911, and as a fellow to American Institute of Architects in September 1911.[18][19] He retired in 1931.[2]

Works

Mount Desert Island cottages

Candler designed or modified many cottages on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, including ten known projects in Seal Harbor (now known as Mount Desert).[20][1] For these cottages, Candler used "natural materials, a broad terrace, [and] sympathetic siting."[21] Some of these houses were designed for his brother-in-law, George L. Stebbins who was superintendent of the Cooksey Realty Co in Seal Harbor.[22]

The first of these projects appears to be Ox Ledge which was built around 1900.[23][24] Ox Ledge was a 6,805 square foot shingle style cottage with seventeen rooms.[24] Martha Stewart purchased Ox Ledge in 2016 and received permits to demolish it in 2021.[23]

Candler designed Wabenaki, constructed in 1906 and 1907 for Stebbins personal use.[20][1][25] In 1909, he designed Eastpoint for Charlotte Augusta (née Rhodes) Hanna.[20][26] He added a brick terrace to Keewaydin in 1910.[20] He also expanded The Eyrie for John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1915.[20]

Skylands

Built between 1923 and 1925 as a summer home for Eleanor and Edsel Ford, Skylands is one of Candler's most significant projects.[20][26] Candler and the Fords worked together to develop the style of Skylands and its location within the forty-acre tract.[21][26] The result was a 35,000 square feet (3,300 m2), twelve-bedroom house that is "severely geometric and horizontal."[27][28] Skylands was built of pink granite harvested on-site and "seems to emerge from the surrounding granite outcrops. ...embraced by ledges and terraces instead of being plunked on a lawn."[5] The 30 by 50 feet (9.1 by 15.2 m) living room has significant wood ceiling beams and a fireplace carved from the local pink granite.[27][5] The house features eleven fireplaces and leaded windows with diamond panes.[28] There is a pergola terrace off of the living room, as well as another terrace with water views.[27] Candler also designed a carriage house, a guest house, a play house with a squash court, and a stable.[28][27] In 1997, Martha Stewart purchased Skylands, fully furnished with Ford's belongings.[23][5]

Candler's only known commission in Bar Harbor was to design substantial alterations to the 19th-century Green Court house which were completed in 1932.[1] This house is part of the National Register of Historic Place's Harbor Land-Eden Street Historic District.[1]

Continental Insurance Company

In 1905, Candler designed an office building on Montague Street in Brooklyn for the Continental Insurance Company.[29] This "modern" four-story building was designed to be fireproof.[29] The first floor was t25 by 100 feet (7.6 by 30.5 m), with the other floors being 25 by 50 feet (7.6 by 15.2 m) feet.[29] The company's new offices were said to be "one of the best appointed in Greater New York."[29]

Rockefeller projects

In 1912, John D. Rockefeller Jr. hired Candler to convert the Kinney House into offices and apartments.[30] The Kinney House was located at 19 West 54th Street, across the street from Rockefeller's New York City home.[30] In 1914, Rockefeller again called upon Candler for a similar project with a six-story home of Elizabeth Caudwell at 16 West 54th Street.[31][32] Across the street from the Kinney House, the Caudwell home was converted into bachelor apartments with a doctor's office on the ground floor.[32] Rockefeller commissioned both projects to keep tradespeople from operating near his house.[30][31]

In 1913, Rockefeller hired Candler to add a sixth story to his home on 54th Street.[33] In 1914, the Rockefeller commissioned Candler to oversee the enlargement of Abeyton Lodge, the family's primary residence in Pocantico.[34][35] Next, Candler expanded The Eyrie at Seal Harbor for Rockefeller in 1915.[20][36] He also added a playhouse and a shingle style boathouse with Colonial style details.[37] The edition to The Eyrie more than doubled the original size of the cottage, taking it to 100 rooms.[38][39] However, the half-timbered style of The Eyrie was to Rockefeller's taste, not Candler's.[21] Eyrie was razed in 1962.[39]

The Eyrie

In 1924, the Rockefellers commissioned Candler to design a "playhouse" for their six children, adjacent to Abeyton Lodge.[40][35][34] The Tudor style, rambling two-story Playhouse was completed in 1927.[40] The Playhouse had a reception hall, living rooms, dining rooms, music room, and a darkroom for developing and projecting films.[34][41] One living room was paneled in oak and featured 16th-century French mantelpieces that Rockefeller had purchased in 1916.[34] However, true to its name, the Playhouse was just that; it included a basketball court, a billiards room, two bowling lanes, a card room, a gymnasium, a volleyball court, and a heated swimming pool—all inside the building.[34][42][41] The pool was large enough for water polo, with four lanes that were twenty-yards-long.[34] Outside the Playhouse, was a baseball field, croquet greens, and tennis court.[42] The Playhouse cost $500,000 (equivalent to $8,537,864 in 2023).[42] David Rockefeller left Playhouse to the National Trust for Historic Preservation when he died in 2017.[40] It is now part of the National Register's Rockefeller Pocantico Hills Estate Historic District.[43] It is operated by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as part of the Pocantico Center.[35] The Rockefeller Brothers Fund renamed the Playhouse Abeyton Lodge after the home of the Fund's founders which is no longer standing.[35]

In 1925, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller hired Candler to turn the children's seventh-floor playroom of the Rockefeller's 54th Street residence into "Topside Gallery" where she could showcase her collection of modern art.[44] Topside Gallery and the Rockefeller's home on 54th Street was demolished in 1938, giving way to the Museum of Modern Art.[45][44]

Candler also designed an art gallery for Mrs. Rockefeller on 54th Street in New York City.[46] Called the Daylight Gallery, the brick building "was designed so that paintings and sculpture could be exhibited to the best advantage and to show, also, how works of art may be used as elements in a modern building."[47] The Daylight Gallery included a skylight and glass ceiling.[47] The Daylight Gallery was a freestanding building located behind the preexisting Downtown Gallery.[47]

In 1929, Rockefeller asked Candler to design wooden gates for Duck Brook Carriage Road Bridge, which he was donating to Arcadia National Park.[48]

YWCA

During World War I, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller chaired the housing committee for the national YWCA's War Works Council.[49] A large number of American women were assisting in the war effort but found a housing shortage where they were needed to work.[49] On behalf of the YWCA, Mrs. Rockefeller engaged Candler for two housing projects, one in Charleston, South Carolina, and the other in Washington, D.C.[49][50] Candler donated his time to the effort.[49][51]

The Charleston project was a "model house" for women who were making uniforms for the soldiers.[49] Mrs. Rockefeller's idea was that Candler's design could be replicated by the United States government across the country, as needed.[49] As a result, Candler created two variations—the two-story Type A building for 100 girls, and the three-story Type B building for 150 girls.[51] However, Candler did not design the buildings as temporary wartime structures, but for prolonged use as a hotel or apartments after the war.[49] In addition to single rooms for the women, the buildings included a living room, a dining room, a sun parlor, several sitting parlors, porches on each level, and recreational facilities for use as either a gymnasium or social gatherings.[51][52][49] For safety, Candler's design included fire walls and fire escapes.[51] In addition, he designed a separate Recreational Building that could be added to a complex of residential buildings.[51] He noted that the Recreational Building should be central to the housing units, and constructed on land that was higher than the others.[51] The sample house in Charleston had a blue slate roof, was finished in stucco with rose trim, and was shaped like a double E.[52] The building was sited on five wooded acres.[52] A newspaper noted that Candler's building was "a style of architecture which is distinctively American."[51]

Also in 1918, Mrs. Rockefeller and Candler went to Washington D.C. to select another housing location for women in the war effort.[50][53] However, the eight-story, 376-room hostel did not open until October 1921, too late to help with the war effort.[50] Called the Grace Dodge Hotel, the YWCA facility was at North Capital and E Streets.[54][50] It was "built and maintained for the use of women of leisure as well as the self-supporting woman, without restriction or rule."[54] The hotel's white stone and tan-colored brick exterior was simple, with little ornamentation.[54][55] Candler used cast stone and concrete, relatively inexpensive building materials, to create beauty within the building.[54] Architecture magazine wrote, "There are reinforced concrete floor arches and cement floors throughout, except on the main floor, where lobby and dining-room are of terrazzo, laid in designs of different colors, and the lounge, where the floor is of oak. The main and garden entrances are filled with ornamental iron of Renaissance design."[54] The hotel also included thoughtful conveniences for women such as shampoo sinks and suites for mothers.[50] The Dodge Hotel was demolished in 1972.[50]

Grosse Pointe

Candler designed a house at 486 Kercheval (now 30 Preston Place) in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan as the springtime home of Louise Webber Jackson.[56] The house was built in 1932, but it is believed Candler designed it as much as ten years earlier.[56] As the widow of Rosco Jackson, president of the Hudson Motor Car Company, Jackson spared no expense on her 8,900 square foot brick house.[56][57]

Personal

Candler married Beatrice de Trobriand Post on August 27, 1902, at Strandholme, the bride's summer home in Bayport, Long Island.[14][16] This marriage allied "him with one of the most distinguished of the latter day Manhattan families."[14] After their marriage, the couple lived at Strandholme.[3] In November 1904, they moved to Short Hills, New Jersey, where Candler's brother was living with his wife.[3] Their daughter, Edith Beatrice Candler, married Count Carlo de Beaf of Genoa on December 9, 1920, in their home at 753 5th Avenue.[58][59][60] Beatrice Candler was the granddaughter of Countess de Trobriand.[16]

During World War I, Candler was supportive of charitable efforts for the French artists and students of his alma mater, the Academie des Beaux Arts in Paris, France.[61][62]

On March 30, 1934, Beatrice Candler arrived in Reno, Nevada to pursue a divorce.[63] At the time, Candler was living at the University Club, while his wife was residing at 42 West 58th Street; the couple had lived in separate residences for seven years.[63][64] Their divorce was awarded on May 15, 1934.[64]

In August 1932, Candler, Edna Edell, and two others arrived in Bangor, Maine to vacation at the home of Z. L. Harvey.[65] Candler married Mrs. Edna F. Edell of Canaan, Connecticut on June 5, 1937, in Salisbury, Connecticut.[2][66]

He died at his home in Salisbury, Connecticut in 1949 at the age of 75.[2][4] He was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.[67]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Mitchell, Christi M. (2009-01-24) "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Harbor Land–Eden Street Historic District". National Park Service. Retrieved 2015-02-23.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Duncan Candler". Hartford Courant. November 14, 1949. p. 4. Retrieved March 15, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. 1 2 3 "Mr. and Mrs. Duncan Willson Candler". Brooklyn Life. November 5, 1904. p. 18. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. 1 2 "Duncan Candler" (PDF). The New York Times. November 14, 1949. Retrieved March 16, 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Bilhuber, Jeffrey (2015-05-02). "Martha Stewart's Maine Estate is Testament to Tradition and Natural Beauty". Architectural Digest. Retrieved 2022-03-16.
  6. ↑ "Duncan B. Candler". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. July 6, 1890. p. 3. Retrieved March 15, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ "The Most Notable Wedding". The New York Times. August 24, 1902. p. 7. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. 1 2 "Flamen B. Candler Dead in 76th Year". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. January 3, 2014. p. 7. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ "The Brooklyn Heights Tennis Club". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. March 30, 1890. p. 9. Retrieved March 15, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ "Tennis Notes". The Sun (New York, New York). June 4, 1890. p. 4. Retrieved March 15, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ "Intercollegiate Tennis". The Sun (New York, New York). October 15, 1891. p. 4. Retrieved March 15, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ Meyer, H. L. G. Catalog of the Members of the Fraternity of Delta Psi Revised and Corrected to July 1906. New York: Fraternity of Delta Psi, 1906 via Google Books
  13. ↑ "Duncan W. Candler". Times Union (Brooklyn, New York). March 20, 1897. p. 15. Retrieved March 15, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. 1 2 3 "Society's Newest Country Club, The Shelter Island". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. August 3, 1902. p. 11. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ "Incoming Steamers". Brooklyn Life. October 27, 1900. p. 25. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. 1 2 3 "The Candler-Post Wedding at Bayport". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. August 27, 1902. p. 10. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ McCauley, Hugh J. "Visions of Kykuit: John D. Rockefeller's House at Pocantico Hills, Tarrytown, New York". The Hudson Valley Regional Review: 23.
  18. ↑ "New York Chapter: Quarterly Review of Chapter Proceedings, April 29, 1911". Bulletin of the American Institute of Architects. 12 (1): 15. April 1911 – via Google Books.
  19. ↑ "Minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting, New York City, September 15, 1911". Bulletin of the American Institute of Architects. Volume 12, no. 3, p. 182. 1911 – via Google Books.
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Cottages of Mount Desert, Hancock County, Maine". V.F. Thomas Co. July 27, 2015. Retrieved 2022-03-16.
  21. 1 2 3 Stebbins, Sarah (2017-03-22). "A Century of Skylands". Down East Magazine. Retrieved 2022-03-16.
  22. ↑ "Seal Harbor". The Bangor Daily News. November 24, 1913. p. 13. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. 1 2 3 "Stewart tearing down Ox Ledge mansion". Mount Desert Islander. 2021-10-21. Retrieved 2022-03-16.
  24. 1 2 "This Mount Desert, Maine property is For Sale - Town and Shore Real Estate". townandshore.com. Retrieved 2022-03-15.
  25. ↑ "Miss Edith Alden Candler". The New York Times. October 13, 1903. p. 7. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. 1 2 3 "Bar Harbor". The Bangor Daily News. September 19, 1922. p. 16. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  27. 1 2 3 4 "Skylands Before Martha". The Down East Dilettante. 2009-12-30. Retrieved 2022-03-16.
  28. 1 2 3 Paige, Allison (August 2021). "Heaven on Earth". Decor Maine. Retrieved 2022-03-16.
  29. 1 2 3 4 "Brooklyn's Wall Street". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. September 9, 1905. p. 8. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  30. 1 2 3 "To Change Old Kinney House". New York Tribune. May 5, 1912. p. 52. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  31. 1 2 "Apartments in 54th St. House". The Sun (New York, New York). January 16, 1914. p. 13. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  32. 1 2 "A New Rockefeller Flat". The New York Times. January 18, 1914. p. 70. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  33. ↑ "To Enlarge Rockefeller House". The Sun (New York, New York). February 22, 1913. p. 16. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  34. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cary, Bill (2018-03-21). "What's Inside the Rockefeller Family Playhouse?". Westchester Magazine. Retrieved 2022-03-15.
  35. 1 2 3 4 Abeyton Lodge: The Pocantico Center. New York, New York: Rockefellow Brothers Fund.
  36. ↑ "Seal Harbor". The Bangor Daily News (Bangor, Maine). November 10, 1915. p. 14. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  37. ↑ "'What God Would Have Done if He'd Only Had the Money'". The Down East Dilettante. June 10, 2010. Retrieved 2022-03-16.
  38. ↑ "The Rockefellers to Spend Christmas at Seal Harbor". The Bangor Daily News. December 22, 1915. p. 6. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  39. 1 2 "Rockefeller Home to be Razed". Bangor Daily News. January 10, 1962. Retrieved March 16, 2022.
  40. 1 2 3 "Abeyton Lodge". Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Retrieved 2022-03-15.
  41. 1 2 "Half Million 'Playhouse' for John D., Jr". The Atlanta Constitution. May 5, 1926. p. 1. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  42. 1 2 3 "$500,000 Play House Will be Erected by Rockefeller Family". The Montgomery Advertiser (Montgomery, Alabama). May 5, 1926. p. 7. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  43. ↑ Krattinger, William (November 2017). "National Register of Historic Places Registrations Form: Rockefeller Pocantico Hills Estate Historic District / Rockefeller State Park Preserve" (PDF). New York Parks. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  44. 1 2 Hunnicutt, Rachel (2019-03-27). "Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Matron of Modern Design | Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum". www.cooperhewitt.org. Retrieved 2022-03-15.
  45. ↑ "Rockefeller Home for Half Century Razed". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. June 16, 1938. p. 20. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  46. ↑ Doctors, Steven I. (2010). "The Collaborative Divide: Crafting Architectural Identity, Authority, and Authorship in the Twentieth Century" (PDF). eScholarship.org. University of California, Berkeley. p. 38. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  47. 1 2 3 "A Daylight Gallery". Times Union (Brooklyn, New York). April 20, 1930. p. 54. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  48. ↑ "Duck Brook Carriage Road Bridge" (PDF). Southwest Harbor Public Library. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
  49. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Mrs. J. D. Rockefeller, Jr., Heads Committee to Provide Suitable Housing Quarters for Women Engaged in War Work". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. January 8, 1918. p. 15. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  50. 1 2 3 4 5 6 DeFerrari, John (April 13, 2011). "Lost Washington: The Grace Dodge Hotel". Greater Greater Washington. Retrieved 2022-03-16.
  51. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Housing Girls in War Work". The Tribune (Seymour, Indiana). February 21, 1918. p. 6. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  52. 1 2 3 "Home for Navy Girls". The State (Columbia, South Carolina). October 13, 1918. p. 23. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  53. ↑ "Y.W.C.A. Housing Head Visits Washington". The Washington Herald (Washington, D.C.). September 4, 1918. p. 10. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  54. 1 2 3 4 5 "Grace Dodge Hotel, Washington, D.C." (PDF). Architecture. 44 (5): 340–341. November 1921 – via U.S. Modernist.
  55. ↑ "No Tips, No Rules, No Men in Hotel". Evening Star (Washington, D.C.). October 16, 1921. p. 18. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  56. 1 2 3 Doelle, Katie (2016-09-20). "30 Preston Place | Katie Doelle". Retrieved 2022-03-16.
  57. ↑ Runyan, Robin (2016-08-12). "This historic Grosse Pointe Farms estate is loaded with original details". Curbed Detroit. Retrieved 2022-03-16.
  58. ↑ "Miss Candler to Wed Count". Daily News (New York, New York). December 7, 1920. p. 22. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  59. ↑ "Miss Candler Became an Italian Countess". Daily News (New York, New York). December 10, 1920. p. 18. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  60. ↑ "Countess Carlo de Beuf". New York Herald. December 10, 1920. p. 13. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  61. ↑ "$6,000 for Needy Artists". The Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer. February 18, 1915. p. 5. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  62. ↑ "Invitations have been issued". New York Tribune. p. 19. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  63. 1 2 "Beatrice Candler Arrives in Reno". Daily News (New York, New York). March 31, 1934. p. 101. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  64. 1 2 "Wins Divorce in Reno". Evening Star (Washington, D.C.). May 16, 1934. p. 19. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  65. ↑ "Miss Edna Edell". The Bangor Daily News (Bangor News). August 6, 1932. p. 12. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  66. ↑ "Edell-Candler". The Kingston Daily Freeman. June 10, 1937. p. 14. Retrieved March 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  67. ↑ "Burial Search – Green-Wood". Green-Wood Cemetery. Retrieved 2022-03-16.
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