Prominent Chicago architect who first worked in Cincinnati with James W. McLaughlin during the early 1880s; Cady maintained the office while McLaughlin was in Europe. Cady, with two other alumni of the McLaughlin office, A.O. Elzner and Frank W. Handy, opened an office in Chicago in 1887-1888. Although Elzner returned to Cincinnati for a long career, Handy and Cady continued to practice there until at least 1910.

Architect said to have built pontoon bridges across the Ohio River for the “Squirrel Hunters” to cross to defend the Cincinnati area against the approaching forces of Confederate general Kirby Smith during the Civil War. The 1830s Wesley Methodist Church, E. Fifth St., was attributed to him.

A fine Traditional designer, from at least 1921 until his death. A graduate of Yale and M.I.T. Practiced in Cincinnati after serving in World War I; with Herbert F. Hilmer after 1956. Cellarius is best known for his subtle and convincing adaptations of the Colonial Revival styles. Among his commissions were many educational buildings for Berea College (Ky.), Ohio University, Ohio State University, Wooster College, Miami University, the former Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio, and the University of Cincinnati, whose Tangeman Student Center is characteristic in quality and inspiration.

He also designed many local high schools, including Fairfax, Bond Hill, and Woodward (in Roselawn, at Reading Rd. and Seymour Ave., ca. 1950s). Cellarius & Hilmer designed the Church of the Redeemer, Hyde Park (1953), and Mt. Washington Westminster Presbyterian Church. Cellarius served as the supervising architect for Mariemont, and designed the Dale Park Fire Station, and the Cellarius Group, Beech St. (ca. 1925) in Mariemont.

According to Antoinette J. Lee, Cellarius served in the 1930s as a member of the jury that judged the competition for a post office in Leavenworth, Kansas, but wrote in protest to the chairman of the AIA’s Committee on Public Works expressing his disappointment in the quality of the few entries submitted and apparently felt that even the prize-winning design by the well-known Modernist St. Louis architect William B. Ittner was not “as good as could have been executed by the Treasury Department itself.” It may well be that Cellarius had further involvement with Federal architecture.

Midwestern theater architect who designed the famous Heuck Opera House (1883), NWC Vine and 13th streets, Over-the-Rhine, which was part of complex that included the still-existing People’s Theater. The Opera House, one of the largest and acoustically most admired in the region, was demolished ca. 1859.

Cobb moved to Chicago after the Fire of 1871, almost immediately specializing in theater design. Among his works elsewhere was the Frankfort, Ky. Opera House.

After reputedly studying architecture in Brussels, immigrated to the U.S. in 1882; worked for Louis Comfort Tiffany and Associated Artists in N.Y. Colonna in the mid-1880s was associated with the important New York architect Bruce Price, who competed unsuccessfully for the design of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce Building in 1885 (a competition won by H.H. Richardson of Brookline, Mass.) but designed several houses in Cincinnati then moved to Dayton, Oh., where he decorated railroad car-interiors for the Barney family company, Barney & Smith; and also "published small design books of an original character" (Eidelberg in Macmillan Encyclopedia), including "An Essay on Broom-Corn" (Dayton, 1887).

Also attributed to Colonna are several advertisements for arts and crafts companies, and for a while the letterhead of The Cincinnati Graphic, a short-lived but ambitious regional periodical. From 1888 Colonna worked for the Canadian Pacific Railroad in Montreal.

He is perhaps best known as one of the principal designers of art furniture, objets d'art, and jewelry for S. Bing's seminal store in Paris, L'Art Nouveau, as well as a sitting-room for the proprietor (see the Musee des Arts decoratifs, Paris).

Colonna is said to have married Louise McLaughlin, a daughter of James W. McLaughlin, prominent Cincinnati architect, in 1888.

Pittsburgh specialist in Roman Catholic architecture and author of an influential book, Catholic Art and Architecture (Pittsburgh, 1920), as well as many articles on church architecture. Brought up and educated in St. Paul, Minn., he later received a Master’s degree in architecture from Mount St. Mary College in Emmittsburgh, Md. In 1897 Comes moved to Pittsburgh, where he is said to have designed more than fifty buildings for the Diocese. Among his many works elsewhere were the Church of St. Agnes in Cleveland and the Cathedral in Toledo, Ohio.

Cincinnati architect Lucien F. Plympton worked for him in Pittsburgh after 1900. In Cincinnati Comes designed the superb St. Mary R.C. Church, Erie Ave., Hyde Park (1916-1917), with magnificent windows by Charles J. Connick and his colleague Henry Wynd Young.

Distinguished historian of urban technology, architecture, and cities, American architecture and engineering, especially that of the Chicago School skyscrapers at the turn of the century.  Graduated from Purdue University, W. Lafayette, Ind., in 1936 with a degree in mechanical and civil engineering, and received his M.A. and Ph.D. (1941) from the University of Cincinnati in English literature.  During World War II, he taught mathematics and mechanics for the U.S. Army and was designing engineer of buildings for the New York Central Railroad in Cincinnati (leading to his interest in Cincinnati’s role in railroad architecture and engineering).  He taught at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., 1947-1982, where he was an innovative and revered teacher.  He was active in the Society of Architectural Historians, a founder of the Society for the History of Technology and its journal, Technology and Culture; the SHT awarded him its prestigious Leonardo da Vinci Medal, as “the world’s foremost authority on the history of building and structure in America.”
Condit dealt in considerable detail with the developments of railroads in the Cincinnati area in an important publication, The Railroad and the City.  He also wrote The Chicago School of Architecture: A History of Commercial and Public Building in the Chicago Area, 1875-1925 (Chicago, 1964); Chicago, 1910-1929: Building, Planning and Urban Technology (Chicago, 1973).

Important stained-glass designer and promoter of the Romanesque attitude toward jewel-like, semi-abstract glass. Associated with E.J. Schulte in a number of church designs, according to Schulte, “The Lord was My Client.”

Major Cincinnati-area real-estate developer, who employed several fine architects including Matthew H. Burton, J. Ward Franklin (son of William W. Franklin), and Harry M. Price. According to Leonard (1927), he “has probably built and sold more homes than any other person or organization of persons in the Central States;” known for developing entire suburbs of rather elegant but restrained single-family dwellings, often in a mild Colonial Revival manner. Son of a farmer and schoolteacher, educated in the Licking Co. Public School and the National Normal University, Lebanon, Oh.; to Cincinnati ca. 1896.

By 1927 he was president of the Hyde Park Lumber Co., Raymond Realty Co., Norwood National Bank, and Hyde Park Savings Bank. Active in Republican politics, he was elected the fifty-first governor of Ohio in 1928, serving one term, 1928-1931. During her time as first lady, Mrs. Cooper (Martha Kinney Cooper) founded the Ohioana Library.

Cooper seems to have been active in supporting the education of African-Americans, as he was a trustee of Lincoln Memorial University (in central Ky.), from which he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, as also from Wilmington College, Wilmington, Oh.

Trained and practiced in Detroit, specializing in Roman Catholic school and ecclesiastical architecture, from 1887 to death. Designed St. Mary, Detroit; the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Denver; and the main body of the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Mary the Assumption in Covington, Ky. (1895-1900 under Coquard), a drawing for which was exhibited at the 3rd CAIA/CAM (1903), among the Architectural League of America's circuit drawings. His masterpiece was based on St. Denis, Paris, at the insistence of the architecturally well-informed Belgium-born Bishop Camillus Maes. Coquard was, however, unable to complete it, so the facade was designed by local architect David Davis, as a version of Notre-Dame de Paris.

Educated in Cincinnati; started his career with "the Desjardins & Hayward Company”; later becoming a partner of A.W. Hayward, erstwhile partner of S.E. Desjardins, 1906-1912. Opened his own firm, H.W. Cordes Co., in 1912; apparently with son F.H. Cordes, until the Depression hit in the early 1930s. Harry's sons William and Walter Cordes succeeded the practice after Harry retired in 1934. Walter W. Cordes was listed 1922-1952, and the firm seems to have survived with various partners into the '60s. Other members of the family, such as Ferdinand H. Cordes, were realtors, contractors, and builders as well as architects.

W.W. Cordes, who resided in and was associated with Wyoming, Oh., was trained at OMI, the Cincinnati Art Academy, and in music (CAIA, 1952).

The work of the firm, probably since World War II, was summarized and beautifully illustrated (including some residential interiors as well as exteriors) in A Monograph of the Work of H.W. Cordes & Sons, Architects (Cincinnati: Universal Press Publishers, 1927), with a foreword or introduction by Walter W. Cordes. The firm's work shown was exclusively residential, and in a vaguely Tudor Revival Traditional style (with one Colonial exception). The picturesque surface of almost every house, whether cottagey or manorial (most quite ambitious, especially inside, with two-story beamed and vaulted living rooms, for instance) includes several materials, such as stone, brick, figured or textured stucco, and half-timbering. Most were concentrated in Hyde Park (Edwards Rd. and Observatory Dr.), with some in North Avondale and H.W. Cordes' own house in Wyoming.

Much of the firm’s later work, by Walter W. Cordes, was in Wyoming; a tour of Wyoming houses focusing on the Cordes’ work there was given by the Cincinnati Preservation Association in 1998, based on research by Anne L. Helmsderfer and Walter E. Langsam.

A great Boston architect, whose firm (including Bertram G. Goodhue, Frank W. Ferguson, and others) designed the Chapel of the Episcopal Convent of the Transfiguration for members of the Procter family of Procter & Gamble. Cram was also responsible for the tiny, exquisite Concordia Lutheran church on East Broadway in Louisville, Ky., and (with or by Ferguson) for the handsome later Second Presbyterian Church on E. Main St. in Lexington, Ky., where they are also said to have advised in the design for the nearby Church of the Good Shepherd.

Cram, Ferguson and Goodhue did, however, exhibit views of churches at Great Neck, L.I., NY, and elsewhere at the 3rd CAIA/CAM (1903).

A prominent (and elite) Cincinnati architect, Charles W. Short, was trained in Cram’s office; his architectural partner Stanley Matthews was connected with the Procter family like Miss Mary E. Johnston, the founder and patroness of the Convent of the Transfiguration, its chapel, girls’ school, and other elements.

Rankin, Kellogg & Crane won the competition for the present Hamilton Co. Court House, Main St., east side opposite Court St., downtown Cincinnati (1915-1918). Crane studied at M.I.T., then worked for H.H. Richardson's successors, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, and Wheelwright & Haven, both in Boston. In 1896 he joined the office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury in Washington, then Cincinnati-New York architect William Martin Aiken, as Chief of the Engineering and Drafting Division, while there he worked on an Akron, Oh., government building, among others. Crane introduced the later Supervising Architect Louis Simon into the Federal office. Crane was associated with Rankin and Kellogg of Philadelphia 1903-1925.

Trained under James K. Wilson, 1865-1873; on his own, 1873-1888, and again, 1895-1901; with William R. Brown, 1889-1895; with E.N. Lamm, 1901-1909.

According to his obituary in the Western Architect & Builder, Crapsey "'blazed the way for those of today [1909], and did his full share of maintaining the profession to a high standard of honorable dealing." He "soon made a specialty of church architecture, and as much as, perhaps more, than [sic] any other architect of the country, developed the institutional church building, claimed by many as containing the necessary accessories and accommodation for the most effective method of church work." Another obituary in The Western Christian Advocate describes Crapsey as "an architect by instinct and training," and lists James W. McLaughlin, S.S. Godley, and George W. Rapp —all major Cincinnati architects during the second half of the 19th century—as honorary pallbearers representing the AIA, although, typically, the real pallbearers were selected from members of his Bible class.

Crapsey began his career designing mainly residences, such as the fine Shingle-Style Nathan F. Baker House on Madison Rd., E. Walnut Hills (1883), for the sculptor relative of Crapsey's mentor Wilson, and "A Five-Thousand-Dollar Suburban Home" in the Cincinnati suburb of Hartwell (1886), as well as commercial buildings. Crapsey & Brown specialized in churches and related structures, particularly for the Methodist Church, to which Crapsey belonged (apparently Brown had already emphasized churches). As the quotation above indicates, they were among the first firm to exploit the "Akron Plan," including Sunday School rooms within the main body of the church connected by moveable screens, and were sought after by many Protestant denominations, not only in Ohio and Ky., but as far as a $300,000 Presbyterian Church for Seattle, Wash. (Crapsey & Lamm, 1906). They also designed church-related educational buildings, such as a dormitory for Ohio Wesleyan College, Delaware (1889). Later, Crapsey & Lamm even designed Methodist missionary schools and chapels in China.

An attractive double-page spread of Crapsey & Brown's churches—diverse in style and location—was published in the AA&BN, XXXVIII, 822 (11/19/1892), including examples in Cincinnati and Kenton, Oh., and Maysville, Mayslick, Carlisle, Covington, and Dayton, Ky. They were also active particularly in Hamilton, Oh., and Winchester, Ky. (where Lamm seems to have been a builder, and perhaps designer, early in his career). Known churches and other commissions in Ohio were located in London, Fostoria, Loveland, Ironton, Waynesville, Portsmouth, Woodstock, Xenia, Franklin, Washington Court House, Lima, Jackson, Mechanicsburg, Miamisburg, Milford, Columbus, Carthage, as well as many areas of Cincinnati; in Kentucky, in Henderson, Newport, Richmond, Mt. Sterling, Danville, Augusta, and Ludlow. Works in Indiana include an M.E. Church in Connersville (1895), the Second Presbyterian in Bloomington (1895), the Ninth St. Methodist in Lafayette (1895), and a few other smaller commissions; Crapsey & Lamm designed the fine Moores Hill College Administration Building (1907). Maysville, Ky., has a particularly important grouping of churches, commercial buildings (including the Masonic Lodge), and residences, all within a block of each other and still remarkably intact.

Among the firms' best surviving churches are the First English Lutheran, Race St. and 12th St. opposite Washington Park (1894); Clifton Methodist, SEC Clifton Ave. and Senator Place (1891); and the Price Hill M.E., NWC Phillips and Considine avenues (now the Church of the Nazarene; 1895). Their smaller churches also have charm.

Like most of the other known work by Crapsey and his partners, the churches have a recognizable, distinctive, and "artistic" character; among their late 19th-century contemporaries, they are more individual and even fantastic than Hannaford or McLaughlin, although usually less so than Buddemeyer, Plympton & Trowbridge, for instance. Crapsey & Brown, in particular, used a wide variety of materials, often in combination, whether poly- or monochromatic; composed interesting masses, especially when utilizing the polygonal forms, variety of roof shapes, and diagonal axes associated with "Akron Plan" church complex; and sometimes juxtaposed plain surfaces or masses, such as square towers, with elaborated surface treatment.

Crapsey's and his associates' secular work was also extensive, both in types and geographically. Crapsey competed for the design of the Cincinnati Centennial Exposition building (1887; won by H.E. Siter; expo held 1888) and the Cincinnati Armory (won by Hannaford; 1887). Among Crapsey & Brown's non-ecclesiastical works—some of them perhaps only projects—were "new pavilions" for the pioneering Cincinnati Base Ball Co. (the "Red Stockings") in the West End (1884); the Newport, Ky. Workhouse, Jail, and Police Court (behind the Court House by A.C. Nash; 1887); the delightful Shingle-Style Westwood Town Hall, a complex containing a variety of municipal facilities (SWC Harrison and Fairview avenues; 1888); a competition design for the Cincinnati Y.M.C.A. Building (NWC Seventh and Walnut streets; won by J.W. McLaughlin; 1889; H.C. Carrel, the delineator, submitted his rendering to the 1889 Cincinnati Architectural Club exhibition); another competition entry for the Odd Fellows' Temple (won by Hannaford, formerly NWC Elm and Seventh streets, 1891, delineated by G.W.E. Field, who may have worked for the firm early in his career); the Tippecanoe School (Cincinnati, 1893); and the Parkersburg, W.Va., City Hall (1894). Crapsey, Carrel and Crapsey presented a handsome Beaux-Arts competition design for a Jubilee Saengerfest Building in 1898. Crapsey & Lamm designed the Carnegie Library for Peru, Ind. (1902), where they also were responsible for the Kendallville Furniture Co. Factory (1907). Among numerous commercial and industrial buildings by the firm, probably the farthest were structures for the Monterey Industrial Co. in Mexico. Residential work was also constant.

Crapsey himself was an early member of the Cincinnati Chapter of the AIA, as a junior member in their founding year, 1870; and served as secretary from at least 1874 until 1895; he was also an FAIA. W.W. Martin, an advocate of the “Akron Plan,” in his Manual of Ecclesiastical Architecture (Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye, 1897), credits Crapsey with supplying "a valuable collection of photographs and engravings upon Modern Church Architecture."

Philadelphia architect who figured largely in the efforts to move from Traditional to Modern, or at least Moderne, design between the World Wars. Studied at the Ecoles des Beaux-Arts in Lyons and then Paris, whose principles he maintained while adapting to some extent to modern conditions. Taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, as Professor of Design until 1907, when he began practice with Albert Kelsey, and in association with Zantzinger, Borie and Medary.

Cret served as a major consultant in the design for the Cincinnati Union Terminal; see Fellheimer & Wagner, and Roland Wank.

As Condit puts it, "Cret was not unknown in Cincinnati: he had prepared architectural plans for the University of Cincinnati in 1909 and 1923 and had acted as consultant in the preparation of plans for the Cincinnati suburb of Mariemont in 1927." He was also listed in association with the shopping center/movie-house originally proposed for Mariemont. He was also a consultant for Cincinnati Art Musuem, and there is an impressive drawing for a proposed addition and/or recasting of the original McLaughlin building in bold, almost stark quasi-Beaux-Arts style.

Cret served on the jury for the 1938 competition for the Covington, Ky., Post Office and Courthouse. He was also associated with the great bridge-engineer Ralph Modjeski in the design of, at least, the Calvert Street (now Duke Ellington Memorial) Bridge in Washington, D.C. (1931); see R.G. Wilson, et al., Machine Age in America (1986), p. 165.

Of Irish parentage; worked as a draftsman for Frank S. Barnum & Co., Cleveland, Oh., for three years; in Chicago for D.H. Burnham & Co., where he was responsible for the office building of the L&N Railroad in Louisville, Ky.; worked in Cincinnati for Frank M. Andrews and S. Hannaford & Sons; and practiced on own after 1917; in 1921 he joined Edward J. Schulte, with whom he continued to emphasize Roman Catholic commissions, until they split under pressures from the Depression in 1933. St. Ann's Convent, Melbourne, Ky., for the Sisters of (Divine) Providence, was among Crowe’s own works.

Schulte, in his self-advancing autobiography, “The Lord Was My Client,” characteristically tended to down-play Crowe’s design role and qualifications, but the training indicated above suggests that he must have been a fully qualified designer on his own.