Ernest Flagg: 1900 - 1920

Flagg, eleven years Vaughan's junior, had just concluded his meteoric rise to the top of the profession. In every way Vaughan's opposite, Flagg was worldly and brash. Born in Brooklyn, Flagg grew up in New York, where after marrying he maintained a townhouse on East Fortieth Street and a 300-acre weekend estate, Stone Court, on Staten Island. He was related to both the Vanderbilt and Scribner families; their patronage proved central to Flagg's architectural career, bringing him some of his most substantial commissions. It was Cornelius Vanderbilt II who financed his education at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. After graduating from the Ecole in 1888, Flagg returned to New York and burst upon the professional scene in 1892 when he won a competition for St. Luke's Hospital, which was moving from Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fourth street to a rural site on Morningside Heights. Flagg's design, portions of which remain in use today, embodied a completely up-to-date view of French Classicism and of the French method of hospital planning; it revolutionized American hospital design.

There's no sentimentality in Flagg's designs--always grand, monumental, and public in spirit. Opposed to the Gothic Revival, Flagg believed Classicism to be the logical, rational system of design uniquely suited to the modern age. While Vaughan reveled in delicate details, Flagg preferred bold gestures, usually realized in granite and limestone, which he laid in massive courses. While working on the design for Sheldon Library, Flagg was also preparing his designs for the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis (1896-1908) and the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Building in Hartford (1900-1902). His Lawrence Library, Pepperell, Massachusetts (1899 1901), is similar to Sheldon, each with a clearly articulated plan carefully expressed on the exterior massing, a model of the French "Beaux-Arts" method. In addition to the Naval Academy, Flagg's best known works include the Corcoran Gallery of Art (1892-97) and a series of buildings for the Singer Company, most notably the forty-seven story Singer Tower on Lower Broadway (1902-1908). Once the world's tallest building, it was demolished in 1967, thereby earning for itself the dubious distinction of being the tallest building ever torn down. For the Scribner family, who have for so long been connected with St. Paul's and may have had something to do with Sheldon's choice of architect, Flagg designed a number of buildings, most notably the bookstore on Fifth Avenue between 48th and 49th streets in New York (1914) with its grand central space and its expansive use of glass and metal on the facade demonstrating the modernity of his approach.

Sheldon Library (1901), a free-standing, severely detailed pavilion set in a garden-like setting overlooking what came to be called Library Pond, appears unnecessarily harsh as we view it today, stripped of its original parapet and carvings and roofed in gray slate instead of the original dark red tile. Portions of the original pediment sculpture, carelessly discarded by the school some time ago, can be seen at Eagle Square in downtown Concord; it is to be hoped that these pieces, as well as other fragments known to exist on the school grounds, will find their way back to Sheldon's roof as part of its forthcoming restoration. The severity of its exterior was largely dispelled on the interior, especially in the light-flooded central reading room where, as in the other principal spaces, the walls were painted green with dark red above the wainscotting. As well, the building was a model of environmental control, with hollow shafts circulating fresh air which was heated in the winter.

The school's expansion during the 1890s virtually filled the boundaries of Millville's historic core, and when the trustees contemplated the construction of the new Upper School building, they began to look for sites on the far side of the Turkey River (where the Upper and the Library would soon be placed). But the process of site selection was, at best, haphazard. Even Vaughan, though he appeared to have had long-term master planning ideas in his head, seems never to have committed them to paper. As Heckscher puts it, "What had begun as a series of small-scale buildings along a village street was in danger of losing its character without achieving a new ordering principle."[28] The alumni, taking on the issue as their own, turned to the leading landscape and town planner of the day, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), designer of Central Park (1858), who had given up a career as a journalist and gentleman farmer. While Olmsted was no longer active in the firm he began, his son and stepson, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (1870-1957), and John C. Olmsted (1853-1920), were carrying on its tradition as the firm of Olmsted Brothers.[29] Their brief reports submitted to the school in 1898 and 1899 observed that to arrange buildings effectively one must group them around some kind of open space, "be it long and narrow like a street or a canal, or be it broad like a quadrangle or lawn."[30] While the village street had worked well for the school in its early days, the Olmsteds argued that in the recent past there had been some compromise with its fundamental clarity --the unfulfilled quadrangular green in front of the chapel, and more confusingly, the placement of the school house far back from the east side of Dunbarton Road, in a kind of limbo, as if academics were an afterthought or an aside in the school's view of education.

The most serious decision affecting the school's future expansion was whether to continue the linear street plan, to adopt Vaughan's quadrangular system, or to adopt a loose configuration, perhaps overlooking the sloping meadow that lay to either side of the Turkey River valley below the mill dam. The Olmsted Brothers deemed the pond that would come to be called Library Pond too small to serve as a focus for an expanded school. They preferred the further side of the Turkey River valley which would be restored to splendor once the school took up the suggestion that it cease pouring sewage into the fast-flowing waterway. The development of the far side of the Turkey River for a time seized the school's imagination, and the existing upper school was moved back sixty feet to make way for a new upper school building. But when the time came to build the new Upper, it was placed elsewhere on a site that though equally remote from the village core, more completely honored the preeminence of Dunbarton Road in the scheme of things.

Between the completion of Sheldon in 1901 on the site of the old miller's cottage and the First World War, nothing of similar significance was undertaken at the school, although a number of buildings were constructed and some bold plans for the future were formulated. In 1911 an architectural committee consisting of alumni architects R. Clipston Sturgis (1860-1951),[31] Benjamin Wistar Morris III (1870-1944),[32] and Charles L. Borie, Jr. (1871-1943)[33] was appointed by the trustees acting at the suggestion of the Alumni Association. The committee submitted reports in November 1913, October 1914, January 1916, and December 1917, developing their proposals on the basis of preliminary studies undertaken in 1910 and 1911 which had addressed the need for new fireproof dormitories, an administration building, a new infirmary, a central heating plant, improved hydraulics for the flood-prone Turkey River, an enlarged and better ventilated chapel, and a new building to replace the middle school.[34] The architects committee appears to have been more than advisory: it undertook the collaborative design of the Armour Infirmary, a Tudorbethan style building largely completed by 1914.[35]

Most significantly, the architects committee, working with the Boston-based landscape architect and site planner Arthur Shurtleff (1870-1957), recognized the fact that the automobile was about to trap Shattuck's remote village in the net of urbanism he had so dearly wished it to escape. They proposed that Dunbarton Road be relocated to a point east of the school and that once closed to traffic, the old Dunbarton Road be narrowed to sixteen feet, with grassy verges planted on either side.[36] As well, they endorsed Shurtleff's proposal of a Broad Walk along the pond's edge connecting the Upper with the chapel and infirmary. Supervised by Shurtleff with the other architects of the committee, the Walk was realized and a bridge over the Turkey River was completed by 1917. As well, a new squash court was built (1915), but not as part of the coordinated sports complex the architects had urged the trustees to consider.[37] Friendly House (1918) was also a result of the committee's work, built to house staff in a gambrel-roofed colonial vocabulary that was as unrelated to the school's architectural traditions as was the building's site to the campus as a whole.[38] In 1988 Friendly House was renovated and converted into student housing, now called Warren House (McGowan, Brook, Reno, Architects).[39]

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28 Heckscher, 128.

29 Among the Olmsted Brothers projects for educational institutions, their design for the grounds of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration are particularly notable. See "Nine Decades of Landscape Design; 1857, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr.--Olmsted Brothers, 1955," Landscape Architecture 45 (April 1955): 121-133.

30 "Reports of Olmsted Brothers (Sept., 1898, and July, 1899) on the Development of the Property," in Grosvenor Atterbury and Frederick Law Olmsted, "Report on the Physical Development of St. Paul's School," (April 1923): 56-71, quoted in Heckscher, 129.

31 Among Sturgis' most notable works are his addition to Charles Bulfinch's Massachusetts State House (1914-17) and the Old Federal Bank (1922), both in Boston. See Douglass Shand Tucci, Built in Boston: City and Suburb 1800-1950 (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1978): 147, 153. He was also a principal architect working with Arthur A. Schurcliff (see note 35), the town planner of the Bridgeport Housing Development, initiated during World War I. See "The Bridgeport Housing Development," American Architect 113 (February 6, 1918): 129-148; "The Government's Housing at Bridgeport, Connecticut," Architectural Record 45 (February 1919): 123-141, and "Development at Bridgeport, Connecticut," Architectural Record 69 (April 1931): 338-339.

32 Morris, a prominent New York architect, began his career at the office of Carrere & Hastings working on the prize-winning New York Public Library. Much of his early work was in Hartford, most notably the Connecticut State Arsenal and Armory (1909) as well as several insurance buildings. See "Connecticut State Arsenal and Armory, Hartford, Connecticut," Architectural Record 30 (December 1911): 547. Morris' most prominent work is in New York, where he designed the Cunard Steamship Building on Lower Broadway (1921) and the Annex to the Pierpoint Morgan Library (1929). See Robert A.M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin, and Thomas Mellins, New York 1930 (New York: Rizzoli, 1987), 528-29, 24.

33 Borie, in a partnership with C.C. Zantzinger & Milton A. Medary, was responsible for major public buildings, most notably the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1928) and the Justice Department Building in Washington (1934). See R. Sturgis Ingersoll, "The Creation of Fairmont," Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 61 (Fall 1965):22-29; Antonio Vasaio, The Fiftieth Anniversary of the U.S. Department of Justice Building 1934-1984 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984). He and his partners also designed a number of educational buildings, including the William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia and dormitories at Princeton University.

34 "Reports and Recommendations of the Architectural Committee Appointed in 1911--Mr. Sturgis, Mr Borie and Mr. Morris (Nov., 1913), (Oct., 1914), (Jan., 1916), (Dec., 1917)," in Atterbury and Olmsted, 72-93.

35 "The New Infirmary," Horae Scholasticae 46 (May 10, 1913): 1, plates; "The New Infirmary," Horae Scholasticae 47 (January 24, 1914): 92; "The Dedication of the New Infirmary," Horae Scholasticae 48 (October 31, 1914): 16.

36 Shurtleff, who later changed his name to Shurcliff, was a landscape architect and planner whose work includes the Paul Revere Mall (1933) between Hanover and Unity streets in Boston. See Donlyn Lyndon, The City Obserued: Boston. a Guide to the Architecture of the Hub (New York: Vintage Books, 1982), 79; Southworth, AIA Guide to Boston, 45.

37 Horae Scholasticae 49 (October 30, 1915): 21-22

38 The Annual Report of the Rector (1917): 13; Horae Scholasticae 51 (May 30, 1918): 199.

39 Horae Scholasticae 51 (May 30, 1918): 186-87; Matt Newman, "New Dormitory to be Named for School's Eighth Rector," Pelican (May 16, 1988): 3.