This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information and to make an appointment, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
This collection contains architectural drawings, photographs, business records and reference materials related to the projects and designs of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and his successor firm, Mayers, Murray & Philips, primarily in the New York City region. A large portion of the collection consists of personal and professional correspondence to and from Goodhue from the early 1900s until his death in 1926. Relatively few architectural drawings from his professional practice survive.
Series 2: Church of the Heavenly Rest
The Church of the Heavenly Rest, including the Chapel of the Beloved Disciple and the Neighborhood Music School, is located at Fifth Avenue and 90th Street in New York City. This project was largely the work of Goodhue's successor firm, Meyers, Murray & Philip. Although many of the drawings indicate "Chapel of the Beloved Disciple" in the title block, these materials document work throughout the church and the Neighborhood Music School.
Series 3: Wilton Lloyd-Smith Residence
The Wilton Lloyd-Smith Residence is located in Lloyd Harbor, Huntington, Long Island, New York. This series includes architectural and construction drawings for the original residence by Goodhue's successor firm, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue Associates, as well as other correspondence and documents from the client, site supervisors and sub-contractors. Also notable is a large body of drawings, correspondence and other papers by landscape architect Warren Manning for the grounds of the estate. Photographs of the property after its completion are also important records of this commission. Lastly, this series contains several construction documents relating to work by other architects for subsequent owners of the property.
Series 4: Nebraska State Capitol
This series contains one presentation drawing, and a large body of papers and clippings regarding the design and construction of this project. One subseries containts documents relating to a legal suit charging that Goodhue used improper materials and issued contracts without competitive bidding.
This series contains extensive personal and professional correspondence between Goodhue, his extended family, and national and international colleagues and associates.
This material is arranged in eight series: Project Records, General; Church of the Heavenly Rest; Lloyd-Smith Residence; Nebraska State Capitol; Correspondence, General; Personal Papers; Whitaker Papers; and Additional Donations. The arrangement of materials within each series is described at the beginning of each series inventory.
This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information and to make an appointment, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
Columbia University is providing access to the materials in the Library's collections solely for noncommercial educational and research purposes. The unauthorized use, including, but not limited to, publication of the materials without the prior written permission of Columbia University is strictly prohibited. All inquiries regarding permission to publish should be submitted in writing to the Director, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. In addition to permission from Columbia University, permission of the copyright owner (if not Columbia University) and/or any holder of other rights (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) may also be required for reproduction, publication, distributions, and other uses. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of any item and securing any necessary permissions rests with the persons desiring to publish the item. Columbia University makes no warranties as to the accuracy of the materials or their fitness for a particular purpose.
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue architectural drawings and papers, 1885-1926. Dept. of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.
Architectural drawings and records by Bertram Goodhue and his related firms can also be found in the Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company/George Collins Architectural Records and Drawings collection, held by Avery Library's Dept. of Drawings & Archives.
Architectural drawings and records by Cram Goodhue and Ferguson, as well as Mayers, Murray & Phillip, the successor firm to Bertram Goodhue, are also held by the Dept. of Drawings & Archives.
Architectural records and papers from Bertram Goodhue can also be found in the Raymond DeRis Collection, held by the Dept. of Drawings & Archives.
Research materials relating to Bertram Goodhue's association with James Renwick can be found in the Selma Rattner Research Papers on James Renwick, held by the Dept. of Drawings & Archives.
Lastly, medals and other items relating to Bertram Goodhue's association with sculptor Lee Lawrie can be found in the Lee Lawrie collection, held by the Dept. of Drawings & Archives.
The bulk of this collection was a gift from Hugo Goodhue in 1983. A small gift of materials was also made by the DeRis family. Drawings for the Church of the Heavenly Rest were donated in 2000 by the church. A small gift of materials related to the Nebraska State Capitol was made in 2003. Additionally, gifts of drawings, photographs, papers, and other records for the Wilton Lloyd-Smith Residence were made in 2005 and 2006 by the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities, Mrs. Marjorie H. Johnson, and Paula and Bruce Rice. Lastly, an autograph album was purchased by Avery Library in 2005.
Columbia University Libraries, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
The bulk of this collection was processed by Annie Grunow, Lurita Macintosh, and Taryn Zarillo, under the direction of Annemarie van Roessel, Archivist, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Department of Drawings & Archives, in 2005-2006.
2006-04-06 File created.
2009-12-03 File revised.
2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue was born on April 28, 1869, in Pomfret, Connecticut. Educated at Russell's Collegiate and Military Institute in New Haven from 1880-1883, where he was known among his classmates for skill in caricature and sketching. Without the financial means to attend college, Goodhue chose instead to seek an apprenticeship with an architectural firm in New York City. In 1884, he began as an assistant and novice draftsman in the office of Renwick, Aspinall and Russell, where he acquired an intensive, but largely self-directed, education in architectural design and production. Moonlighting after hours as a draftsman and designer, Goodhue became adept at highly detailed and atmospheric perspective renderings of extant structures and his own imaginative architecture.
In 1891, Goodhue was awarded a prestigious competition commission to design a cathedral in Dallas, Texas. Seeking collaborative assistance with this large project, Goodhue meet with Boston architects Ralph Adams Cram and Charles Francis Wentworth, who shortly offered him a full partnership in their firm. Although the cathedral remained unbuilt, Cram, Goodhue and Wentworth renamed Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson in 1898 received numerous commissions throughout the New England for ecclesiastical and civic buildings and residences in the English Gothic and Beaux-Arts styles. Both Goodhue and Cram were well known for associations and collaborations with noted artisans and craftsmen, particularly members of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, with whom they frequently socialized. With the commission to design the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1902, Goodhue returned to New York City to open a branch of CGF to more closely supervise design and construction at the site. From that office, Goodhue designed numerous other major buildings, including St. Thomas Church (New York, New York, 1905-1920); Rice University (Houston, Texas, 1909); the Chapel of the Intercession (New York, New York, 1910-1914); and the Panama-California Exposition (San Diego, California, 1911-1915).
Goodhue's business relationship with Cram and Ferguson was dissolved in 1913 and Goodhue became an independent architect, employing several dozen staff by the start of World War I. He continued to receive significant commissions, including the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer (New York, New York, 191-1918); Saint Bartholomew's Church (New York, New York, 1914-1919); California Institute of Technology (Pasadena California, 1915-1917); Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago (Chicago, Illinois, 1918-1928); the Nebraska State Capitol (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1920-1932); and the Los Angeles Public Library (1921-1926). Although never formally trained in architectural idioms, Goodhue's work frequently referred to the Arts and Crafts movement and a vernacular aesthetic, often incorporating the work of talented craftsmen.
Increasingly reductivist and modern after World War I, Goodhue often integrated historicist Mediterranean and Indo-European aesthetics with classical massing to achieve a recognizable style of his own. Goodhue's commissions took him across the United States, and he traveled widely for business and pleasure after 1900, often to see architecture of other cultures and regions, which he sketched with great aplomb. In the spring of 1924, after a trip to Los Angeles, where he was involved in building the public library, Goodhue succumbed to a heart attack, just days before his fifty-fifth birthday. His ashes were interred in a church of his own design, the Chapel of the Intercession, in New York City, in a tomb designed by a long-time colleague, sculptor Lee Lawrie. After Goodhue's sudden death, his office was reorganized as Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue Associates to complete outstanding commissions. In 1931 the firm was renamed by its partners Mayers, Murray & Phillip, closing finally in 1940.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
All links open new windows.