Richard Howland Hunt (March 14, 1862 – July 12, 1931) was an American architect and member of the Hunt family of Vermont who worked with his brother Joseph Howland Hunt in New York City at Hunt & Hunt.
The brothers were sons of Richard Morris Hunt, the first American Beaux-Arts architect. Richard practiced in his father's office until the elder Hunt died in 1895, then continued to carry out his father's designs for the central block of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[2] not without initial resistance by the museum's trustees.[3] In 1901, the brothers formed a partnership[4] that lasted until Joseph's death in 1924.[5]
Early life
Hunt was born on March 14, 1862, in Paris, where his father, Richard Morris Hunt (1827–1895), was completing his architectural studies. His mother, Catherine Clinton Howland (1841–1880), was the youngest daughter of the prominent merchant Samuel Shaw Howland of Howland & Aspinwall. His siblings were Catharine Howland Hunt (wife of Rear Adm. Livingston Hunt, son of William H. Hunt), fellow architect Joseph Howland Hunt,[5] Esther Morris Hunt (wife of George Muirson Woolsey),[6] and oilman Herbert Leavitt Hunt (who married Evelyn Frances Bell).[7][8]
In 1887, Richard Hunt joined his father's offices, first as a draftsman and later an associate. After his father's death, he attracted wealthy clients and built residences such as the Margaret Shepard house at 5 East 66th Street in 1900 (today home to the Lotos Club).[9]
Urban residences by Hunt & Hunt include the two Beaux-Arts houses designed for George W. Vanderbilt at 645 and 647 Fifth Avenue, known as The "Marble Twins". Only No. 647, a designated New York City Landmark, survives today.
George Washington Vanderbilt Houses, 645 and 647 Fifth Avenue, New York, called the "Marble Twins." 1902-05. Number 647 survives, a designated landmark, as the flagship store for Versace;[11] the site of 645 is now Olympic Tower.
Forest Hall, Milford, Pennsylvania. 1903. For James Pinchot, for whom Richard Morris hunt had built Grey Towers. (National Register of Historic Places)
^Hunt was unable to persuade the Museum's trustees to complete the sculptural groups. Bogart, Michele H. Public Sculpture and the Civic Ideal in New York City 1989:158-65
^Gray, Christopher. "Streetscapes: 647 Fifth Avenue; A Versace Restoration for a Vanderbilt Town House" The New York Times (April 9, 1995) accessed 2 December 2008.
^Pinchot was the brother of the conservationist Gifford Pinchot, superintendent of the forest surrounding Biltmore, built by Richard Morris Hunt for George Washington Vanderbilt, completed by Richard H. hunt in 1896.
^Trager, James. Park Avenue, Street of Dreams (Atheneum, 1990).