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William Appleton Potter
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EARLY CAREER


Potter was the son of Bishop Alonzo Potter and a half-brother of Edward Tuckerman Potter , who was also an architect. Born in 1842 in Schenectady, New York , Potter grew up in Philadelphia and attended Union College . His collegiate background distinguished him from most of the architects of the first half of the 19th Century, who received their training through apprenticeship in the building trades and sometimes in the offices of practicing architects. The apprenticeship tradition was still strong, however, and Potter received his professional training in his half-brother's office. (August 1989) Princeton History, Number 8 http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Otherdocs/history.html


COMMISSIONS


Chancellor Green Library for Princeton University was Potter's first major commission. In it, he took the High Victorian Gothic vocabulary and octagonal form used by his half-brother for the Nott Memorial at Union College , and elaborated it into a complex interplay of octagons of various sizes and shapes. For Princeton, retaining Potter represented a shift from dependence on Philadelphia architects to a New York practitioner. Potter would go on to design several other buildings on campus:
  • John C. Green Science building (1873-1875) (demolished)

  • Alexander Hall (1891-1894)

  • East Pyne Building (1896-1897)

  • The University Hotel (1875-1877) with his partner Robert Henderson Robertson (demolished)

  • Witherspoon Hall (1875-1877)

  • Stuart Hall (1875-1877) at Princeton Theological Seminary .


During 1875 and 1876, Potter also served as supervising architect of the United States Treasury . Under his supervision, designs were produced for customhouses, courthouses, and post offices in Kentucky , Indiana , Massachusetts , Georgia , and Tennessee .

In New York City , he designed:
  • Church of St. Paul & St. Andrew (1895)

  • Church of the Divine Paternity (1898)

  • St. Martin's Church (1888)AIA Guide to New York City, MacMillan, 1967, page 452



PARTNERSHIP


During his New York partnership with Robert Henderson Robertson , from 1875 to 1881, the firm produced summer vacation cottages in Newport, Rhode Island ,and the Jersey Shore . Potter and Robertson also designed:
  • South Congregational Church, Springfield, Massachusetts (1871-1875)

  • Brown University Library (1875)

  • Charles H. Baldwin House, Newport, Rhode Island (1877-78)

  • St. James Protestant Episcopal Chapel; known as the Church Of The Presidents (New Jersey) , Elberon, New Jersey (1879)

  • Christ Church, Poughkeepsie, New York (1887-1889)

  • First Reformed Dutch church, Somerville, New Jersey (1896-1897)

  • 33 East 67th Street, New York, New York (1903)



FAMILY


Potter had at least five brothers:


Potter was the uncle of Mrs. J. Kennedy Tod (Maria Howard Potter), and in 1887 designed Innis Arden House and several other buildings for Mr. and Mrs. Tod's Greenwich, Connecticut estate, known as Innis Arden . Today the 147 acre estate is a public park in Greenwich, and is known as Greenwich Point. Several of Potter's original buildings on the estate remain, and are undergoing restoration under the leadership of the Greenwich Point Conservancy.

Potter died in 1909.


REFERENCES