Horace Trumbauer

 ( 1868 Births ) 

For the Wideners, the Elkins, and their circle he designed mansions in Philadelphia, New York City, and Newport, Rhode Island. Through these connections, and others, he designed office buildings, hospitals, and institutional buildings. Known for his academic facility designs, some of his most notable works include commissions for the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Duke University, and others. Harvard University's principal library, the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, was built with a gift from Eleanor Elkins Widener as a memorial to her son, Harry, Class of 1907, an enthusiastic young bibliophile who died in RMS Titanic.

On April 25, 1903, Trumbauer married Sara Thomson Williams and became stepfather to her daughter, Agnes Helena Smith, from her previous marriage to iron dealer C. Comly Smith. Architectural Record published a survey of his work in 1904, less than a decade after his first major commission.

In 1906, Trumbauer hired Julian Abele, the first African-American graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Architecture Department, promoting him to chief designer in 1909. Many of Trumbauer's later buildings are largely attributed to Abele. He contributed to the design of more than 400 buildings, including the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University (1912–15), Philadelphia's Central Library (1917–27), and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1914–28). He was also the primary designer of the west campus of Duke University (1924–54). With the exception of the Duke Chapel (1934), Abele never claimed credit for any of the firm's buildings designed during Trumbauer's lifetime.

The commission for the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1916–28) was shared between Trumbauer's firm and Zantzinger, Borie and Medary. Trumbauer's architect Howell Lewis Shay is credited with the building's plan and massing, although the perspective drawings appear to be in Abele's hand.David B. Brownlee, Making a Modern Classic: The Architecture of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1997), pp. 60–61, 72–73. When it opened in 1928, the building was criticized as being vastly overscaled and nicknamed "the great Greek garage". But, perched on Fairmount Hill and terminating the axis of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, it is now considered to be the most magnificently situated museum in the United States.

In 1923, Trumbauer was hired by the Reading Company to design the Jenkintown Train Station. A fine example of Queen Anne revival architecture, it still stands today as the Jenkintown-Wyncote station and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014. His work was also part of the architecture event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.

In 1933, Trumbauer was commissioned to build an ornate Ancien-Regime French style mansion for Herbert Nathan Straus, the youngest son of Macy's founder Isidor Straus. Built in limestone with intricate carvings on the façade, the Herbert N. Straus House is now the largest private residence in Manhattan. The mansion exemplifies the classic but opulent style requested of industry barons of that time.