a
New York City landmark, which is now the
Daryl Roth Theatre presentation to Henry Bacon in 1923 in
Washington, D.C. commemorating
George H. Perkins, a
U.S. Navy officer during the
American Civil War Early career Bacon initially worked in the office of
McKim, Mead & White in
New York City, one of the best-known architectural firms at the time. His works of that period were in the late
Greek Revival and
Beaux-Arts styles with which the firm was associated. They included the
1889 World Expo in
Paris,
Boston Public Library in
Boston, the
New York Herald Building,
Harvard Club of New York City,
Columbia University's
Morningside Heights campus, and
Pennsylvania Station, each in
New York City, and the
World's Columbian Exposition in
Chicago in 1893. While at McKim, Mead & White, Bacon won, in 1889, the Rotch Traveling Scholarship for architectural students. This gave him two years of study and travel in Europe, which he spent learning and drawing details of
Roman and
Greek architecture. In
Turkey, he met his future wife, Laura Florence Calvert, daughter of a British consul. He traveled with another fellowship student,
Albert Kahn from
Detroit, Michigan, who also went on to become a leading industrial architect. After returning to the U.S., Bacon worked for a few more years with his mentor,
Charles McKim, including on such projects as the
Rhode Island State House in
Providence, Rhode Island. He served as McKim's personal representative in
Paris during the
World Exposition in 1889 and in
Chicago for the
World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, for which McKim, Mead & White was designing several buildings. In 1897, Bacon left with
James Brite, a younger architect from the firm, to found the partnership of Brite and Bacon Architects. Brite was in charge of financial, administrative, and contracting aspects of the partnership, while Bacon was in charge of the architectural design and construction. The partnership immediately won the competition for the
Jersey City, New Jersey's public library and the Hall of History (now Hurst Hall) for
American University in
Washington, D.C. They built a number of public buildings and a small number of private residences, which most notably included
La Fetra Mansion in
Summit, New Jersey. The partnership was selected in 1897 to build three private residences:
La Fetra Mansion; Laurel Hill, a three-story
Georgian mansion in
Columbia, North Carolina; and Donald McRae House in
Wilmington, North Carolina. The La Fetra Mansion was designed and built by Bacon, and his design was published in the September 1901 issue of
Architecture, the preeminent architectural professional journal of its time. The LeFetra Mansion fully exhibits Bacon's preference for Beaux-Arts Neo-Greek and Roman architectural styles. His simple and elegant lines, and his skill in dimensions and proportions, were described as expressing a stately elegance, peaceful tranquility, and sense of divine protection.
Lincoln Memorial In 1897, following the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Bacon was also approached by a group, which had organized to raise public and private funds to build a monument in Washington, D.C., to memorialize President
Abraham Lincoln. Bacon began his conceptual, artistic, and architectural design for the
Lincoln Memorial that year. He continued in the effort, although the funding to build the project was not secured until years later. The Brite and Bacon Partnership dissolved in 1902, partly resulting from Brite's disagreement over Bacon's passion and the unpaid time he spent on the memorial design.
Prominent buildings and monuments After that, Bacon practiced under his own name with significant success, building a large number of public buildings and monuments which became renowned, until his death in 1924. His later works included the
Danforth Memorial Library in
Paterson, New Jersey, in 1908, the
Ridgewood, New Jersey 1924 War Memorial in Van Neste Park; the train station in
Naugatuck, Connecticut; Waterbury Hospital
Waterbury, Connecticut; Court of the Four Seasons at the
Panama–Pacific International Exposition in
San Francisco in 1915; World War I Memorial at
Yale University in
New Haven, Connecticut, the
Lincoln Memorial in
Washington, D.C., the Confederate Memorial in
Wilmington, North Carolina; and many other distinguished public buildings and monuments. In 1913, Bacon was elected into the
National Academy of Design as an associate member, and he became a full member in 1917. Bacon was very active as a designer of monuments and settings for public sculpture. He designed the Court of the Four Seasons for the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, and the World War I Memorial at
Yale University. He collaborated with sculptor
Augustus Saint-Gaudens on the Sen.
Mark Hanna Monument in
Cleveland, Ohio, and with
Daniel Chester French on several monuments, notably the Lincoln Memorial's pensive colossal Lincoln. Olin Memorial Library, one of Bacon's buildings at
Wesleyan University, houses many of Bacon's documents and blueprints of the Lincoln Memorial. Bacon rarely found time to design private residences. There are three known residential projects that are clearly his work. The first is the La Fetra Mansion in Summit, New Jersey, designed and built by the firm of Brite & Bacon from 1897 to 1900. Bacon skillfully integrated into a residential setting many of his signature Greek Revival and Roman Renaissance elements and proportions. The resulting elegance was astoundingly masterful. The La Fetra Mansion was commissioned by industrialist Harold A. La Fetra of the Royal Baking Powder Company, which later merged with
RJR Nabisco. The second is Donald McRae House in
Wilmington, North Carolina, built for his close friend Donald McRae. The third Bacon-designed private residence is
Chesterwood House, which he designed for his friend, the noted sculptor
Daniel Chester French, as his summer home and studio at
Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Its exterior bears similarity to the La Fetra Mansion. Bacon served as a member of the
U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 1921 until his death in 1924. In May 1923, President
Warren G. Harding presented Bacon with the
American Institute of Architects's
Gold Medal, making him the sixth recipient of the honor. ==Death and legacy==