Isaiah Rogers

Because of the work of Denys Peter Myers, discoverer and transcriber of Rogers' surviving daily journal, he should "need no introduction"; a Macmillan Encyclopedia article by Myers brings us up-to-date on Rogers' career, and several illustrated lectures in 1991 enlarged our understanding of his work in the Ohio River Valley.

In summary, Rogers, one of the leading architects of the East Coast and "inventor of the modern hotel" with the 1828 Tremont House in Boston, was called to Cincinnati in 1848 to design and supervise the construction of the Burnet House Hotel on the NWC of Third and Vine streets, then one of the main intersections of downtown Cincinnati. Even before "the best hotel in the world" opened in 1850, Rogers had undertaken many other commissions in Cincinnati, as well as journeyed down the Ohio River by steamboat to consider other projects in Louisville (where he set up a branch partnership with the talented Henry Whitestone), Memphis, Mobile, N. Orleans, and elsewhere.

Mary N. Woods, in her brilliant study of “The Practice of Architecture in Nineteenth-Century America,” stated “Every major architect in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, D.C., traveled far afield to find work before the Civil War. There were simply not enough opportunities in these large cities to sustain professional practice. Ithiel Town, Alexander Jackson Davis, Thomas U. Walter, Richard Upjohn, William Strickland, Samuel Sloan, John Notman, Isaiah Rogers, and Robert Mills all accepted commissions in the South and Midwest. The southeastern states, where traditionally architects were few and clients wealthy, provided many opportunities. Having a prominent architect like Strickland, Davis, Walter, or Upjohn became a point of pride for many southern clients and building committees during the antebellum period.” [The last two sentences apply more to Kentucky, perhaps, where Davis designed “Loudoun“ near Lexington and Stirewalt (cited by Woods earlier on the the same page). He ended up in Louisville, where in turn he hired James Dakin to design the Bank of Louisville, etc. [Note that William Bayliss, Dakin, and Stirewalt had all worked in the office of A.J. Davis.]

Cincinnati clients had hired the equally important Anglo-American John Haviland from Philadelphia and possibly Upjohn for individual residences but Rogers was probably the first already established, recognized major Eastern architect to move West at the height of his career (Woods, From Craft to Profession (Berkeley: Univ. of Cal. Press, 1999), p. 95).

Except for a few years in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War as Supervising Architect of the Treasury (a position in which he was supplanted by his Cincinnati protege A.B. Mullett), Rogers practiced in and out of Cincinnati to the end of his life; his son Solomon Willard Rogers joined and succeeded him, practicing until 1891, when his own son Willard G. Rogers is listed. Henry Whitestone, of Anglo-Irish birth and training, joined Rogers in the early 1850s, serving as his draftsman, and eventually as his partner in charge of the Louisville office; perhaps a certain refinement of "finish" in their joint work is attributable to Whitestone. On the other hand, A.B. Mullett, who received his training in Rogers' Cincinnati office ca. 1855-1860, may have been partially responsible for the technological advances employed in the design for Longview Asylum, 1859-1860, when Isaiah Rogers was also superintending the construction and somewhat modifying the controversial and much-altered design for the Ohio State Capitol (1858-1860).

Among the major works of Isaiah Rogers in Cincinnati were the Longview Asylum in nearby Carthage, Oh. (1859-1860); a proposal for the Hamilton Co. Court House (1851; built according to the design of Walter & Wilson); the executed Hamilton Co. Jail (1859-1861), behind the Court House on Sycamore St. north of Court St.; St. John (later St. Paul) Episcopal Church (Pro-Cathedral), formerly at SEC Seventh and Plum streets in the "church district" (1849-1852); and the 2nd Pike Opera House (after 1866); these were in a variety of monumental styles, from austere late Grecian to rich Italianate and even Tudor Gothic. The last included the former Tyler Davidson Dry Goods Store, commissioned by Davidson's brother-in-law Henry Probasco, to whom Rogers also submitted a residential design (the actual Norman Revival mansion was designed by William Tinsley).

Several Rogers houses remain standing in the Cincinnati area, including the subtle Boston-double-bay-style Hatch House, 830 Dayton St., West End; the recently rediscovered Castellated Tudor Reuben Resor House atop Cornell Place in Clifton; "Hillforest," distiller and banker Thomas Gaff's "steamboat" Italianate frame mansion above Aurora, Ind.; and the Peter Thomson (I) house, later the Morrison house and the Y.M.C.A. (for whom it was Victorianized ca. 1880 and later Colonialized on the exterior), Richmond, Ind. Rogers also competed for the design of Henry Probasco's Clifton residence, "Oakwood" (along with A.J. Davis of New York, and [John R.] Hamilton & [James W.] McLaughlin; William Tinsley won the commission).

Isaiah Rogers seems to have had an ambiguous relationship with several other Cincinnati architects. There are references in his journal (January, 1856) to his making plans for a Shillito store on Fourth St. next to the Presbyterian Church; this was presumably the commission that the young James W. McLaughlin received, at least partly because his father William McLaughlin had been Shillito's first partner in the dry-goods business (the McLaughlin store building still exists at W. Fourth St., until recently as part of McAlpin's Department Store, for whom McLaughlin remodeled it in 1892). At the time in 1866-1867 that Rogers was designing and supervising reconstruction of Pike's Opera House on Fourth St., which had burned in 1866, he was also in contact with entrepreneur Truman Bishop Handy on a project to build a rival opera house; it was McLaughlin's version of this project, intended for the west side of Vine St. south of Sixth St., that was converted into the considerably different design for the Cincinnati Public Library by McLaughlin, about 1870.

James K. Wilson and William Walter also exchanged jobs and roles with Rogers. William Walter worked on the Ohio State House with and after his father Henry Walter's death; Rogers helped complete the State House. Rogers originally designed the mid-1850s Hamilton County Court House (on the present site on the east side of Main opposite Court St.), but there seems to have been much controversy over the project, and the work was completed (but without the proposed dome), by Walter & Wilson. Rogers investigated the Civil War camp at Camp Dennison in eastern Hamilton Co., apparently designed by Wilson. Yet at the end of his life, in 1867, Rogers discussed Wilson's employing his son Willard, and the journal indicates that he did so.

As the journals are further explored, more Rogers buildings are coming to light, in documentation or reality; and the career of his son and grandson are almost totally unknown so far. It is known, however, that S.W. Rogers was a charter member of the Cincinnati Chapter of the AIA, and a few commissions in 1889-1890 include the 9-story Washington Fire Insurance Co. Building.