Architect, decorator and designer. Tastemaker for the era of America's "Gilded Age." He dominated his profession at a time when great fortunes were being created and spent by a new generation of Americans intent on opulent buildings and interior decor. Stanford White gave tangible form to the achievements and aspirations of his era's great princes of commerce; clients who, marvelling at the wealth they had amassed, were willing to consider what luxury had to offer. White received his training in the architectural offices of the great Henry Hobson Richardson and in 1879, along with fellow draftsmen Charles Follen McKim and William Rutherford Mead, set up their own practice in New York. The partnership of McKim, Mead and White, whose work would later echo the great classical examples of the past, created not only libraries, private clubs, municipal buildings, apartment houses, and the restoration of the White House during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, but splendid residences for the moneyed elite. They satisfied so magnificently the needs of the most fastidious of New Yorkers in search of town houses and resort cottages, in that era of elegance, that American architecture would never be the same again. Stanford White, the decorative genius of the firm, supremely perceptive and superbly trained, imaginative and enthusiastic, worked his will on Manhattan and the City surrendered without a sigh. So perfect was his understanding of his clients' desires and the mood of the 1890s. White's tragic murder, at the rooftop cafe of the first Madison Square Garden, a building he designed, remains embedded in popular lore.

Architect, decorator and designer. Tastemaker for the era of America's "Gilded Age." He dominated his profession at a time when great fortunes were being created and spent by a new generation of Americans intent on opulent buildings and interior decor. Stanford White gave tangible form to the achievements and aspirations of his era's great princes of commerce; clients who, marvelling at the wealth they had amassed, were willing to consider what luxury had to offer. White received his training in the architectural offices of the great Henry Hobson Richardson and in 1879, along with fellow draftsmen Charles Follen McKim and William Rutherford Mead, set up their own practice in New York. The partnership of McKim, Mead and White, whose work would later echo the great classical examples of the past, created not only libraries, private clubs, municipal buildings, apartment houses, and the restoration of the White House during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, but splendid residences for the moneyed elite. They satisfied so magnificently the needs of the most fastidious of New Yorkers in search of town houses and resort cottages, in that era of elegance, that American architecture would never be the same again. Stanford White, the decorative genius of the firm, supremely perceptive and superbly trained, imaginative and enthusiastic, worked his will on Manhattan and the City surrendered without a sigh. So perfect was his understanding of his clients' desires and the mood of the 1890s. White's tragic murder, at the rooftop cafe of the first Madison Square Garden, a building he designed, remains embedded in popular lore.

Bio by: R. Bruce