H. Louis Duhring, Jr.

300-06 West Willow Grove Avenue, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia (1913), Durhing, Okie & Ziegler, architects. One of Duhring's Cotswold-style houses.

Herman Louis Duhring, Jr. (March 24, 1874 - July 18, 1953) was an American architect from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He designed several buildings that are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.[1]

Career

The son of an Episcopal minister, he attended the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, and worked in the architectural offices of Mantle Fielding and Frank Furness. In 1897, he was the winner of the first Stewardson Traveling Scholarship for study in Europe. He returned to Philadelphia in 1898, and opened his own office. In 1899, he formed a partnership with R. Brognard Okie and Carl Ziegler – Duhring, Okie & Ziegler. Okie left the firm in 1918, and the partnership continued as Duhring & Okie until 1924, after which Duhring worked independently.

Between 1910 and 1930, Dr. George Woodward commissioned about 180 houses in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, using mostly architects Edmund B. Gilchrist, Robert Rodes McGoodwin and Duhring.[2] Among the earliest were Duhring's innovative "Quadruple Houses" (1910) – four attached houses huddled together so that each shared one long and one short wall. These provided tenants with more privacy than row houses, and were cheaper to build than detached houses.[3] Woodward built two sets of "Quads" on Benezet Street, and later three more sets on Nippon Street in Mount Airy.[4] Duhring also designed dozens of Cotswold-style houses for Woodward.[5] A replica of Sulgrave Manor, the English ancestral home of George Washington, was an attraction at the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Woodward bought its interiors, and had them installed in his own replica, designed by Duhring, that stands at 200 West Willow Grove Avenue in Chestnut Hill.[6]

Duhring managed the disassembly, relocation, reassembly, and restoration of two Georgian mansions – "Whitby Hall" in West Philadelphia was relocated to Haverford, Pennsylvania in 1922-24; and "Rocky Mills" near Ashland, Virginia was relocated to Richmond, Virginia in 1928. Whitby's magnificent staircase – a smaller-scale version of the staircase at Independence Hall – and other interiors were sold to the Detroit Institute of Arts to pay for the costly project.[7] Duhring modernized the relocated "Rocky Mills" in a particularly sensitive way – by increasing the building's depth, he was able to insert bathrooms and closets between its unaltered front and back halves.[8]

In 1931, the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks hired Duhring to restore the Powel House (built c. 1765). Once one of the grandest Georgian houses in Philadelphia, it was then being used as a warehouse and commercial building, and was facing demolition. Its ornate parlor had been removed and installed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and its ballroom had been removed and installed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The building was restored, its lost rooms were re-created, and the Society opened it as a house museum.

Duhring was a member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and was elected a Fellow in 1952.

Selected works

References

  1. ↑ National Park Service (2009-03-13). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. ↑ Witold Rybczynski, City Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 187.
  3. ↑ Duhring, Okie & Ziegler, Architects, "A Practical Housing Development: The Evolution of the 'Quadruple House' Idea," The Architectural Record, (July, 1913), pp. 46-55.
  4. ↑ David R. Contosta, Suburb in the City: Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, 1850-1990 (Ohio State University Press, 1992), pp. 106-07.
  5. ↑ Chestnut Hill 8br Duhring estate sells for $1.1 million from Curbed Philly.
  6. ↑ Sulgrave Manor from PhotoBucket.
  7. ↑ "This piece of history keeps changing," The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 6, 1992.
  8. ↑ Rocky Mills (Fairfield), NRHP Nomination, March 29, 2002.
  9. ↑ St. Peter's by-the-Sea from Alaska Digital Archives.
  10. ↑ The See House, Sitka from Alaska Digital Archives.
  11. ↑ Karen DeRosa, NRHP Nomination, Church of the Redeemer, Atlantic County, New Jersey, 1992.
  12. ↑ Masters Thesis Index from Historic Preservation Dept., University of Pennsylvania.
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