This space, called the Tiffany Room or the Veterans' Room, was designed by Associated Artists. The firm, founded in 1879, was a collaboration between Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of the founder of Tiffany & Company, the textile designer Candace Thurber Wheeler, the Hudson River school painter and decorator Samuel Colman, and the ornamental woodcarver Lockwood de Forest. Stanford White (of the firm McKim, Mead and White) was a consultant on the architectural composition, including the built-in furniture, fireplaces, latticework, and inset panels on the wainscoting of the Veterans' Room. Later Stanford White would commission Tiffany for many of his projects. The Veterans' Room might best be described as a combination of Greek, Moresque, and Celtic, with a dash of the Egyptian, the Persian and the Japanese. Wrought-iron radiator covers, candelabra, and chandeliers also evoke weapons and defense. The veterans of the regiment were given exclusive control of this room until 1889. The adjoining Library was intended for both veterans and active members of the regiment.
McKim, Mead and White
(1879 – 1919)
was the premier American architectural firm from 1879 to1919. The firm's principals were Charles Follen McKim (b. 1847 Pennsylvania - d. St. James, New York 1909), William Rutherford Mead (b.1846 Vermont - d. Paris, France, 1928), and Stanford White (b.1853 New York City - d. New York 1906).During the first 30 years of business, the firm received and executed nearly one 1,000 commissions. The partners championed the movement to introduce classical order to America's cities by using models from Greek and Roman Antiquity and combining them with Renaissance forms. Examples of their early works are the Villard Houses (1882; now a part of the New York Plaza hotel) and the Boston Public Library (1887-95). The firm's Newport Casino (1879-80) and Isaac Bell House (1881-3) were American shingle-style designs. They designed Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus; the University Club (1900); the Pierpont Morgan house (1906; now the Pierpont Morgan Library Museum); additions to the sides of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1906); New York's Pennsylvania Station (1910; demolished and replaced); the New York Racquet Club (1916-19); and New York University University Heights campus (now Bronx Community College). At NYU Stanford White designed the arcade (Hall of Fame of Great Americans), lined with bronze busts of famous Americans, intended to serve as a monument as well as an educational tool. The firm's public and private buildings defined America's Gilded Age. 'The American Academy building in Rome, Italy, is one of the few buildings they designed outside America. Charles Follen McKim was among the founders of the Academy and was its president when the building was first conceived. Together with their contemporaries Richard Morris Hunt, Carrère & Hastings, Calvert Vaux, and James Renwick, McKim, Mead & White succeeded in establishing American architecture as important.
Louis Comfort Tiffany
(b. 1848 NYC – d. NYC 1933)
was a philanthropist, craftsman and the son of the founder of Tiffany jewelers. He studied art with George Inness and Samuel Coleman in New York, and under Leon Bailey in Paris. As a painter he made Oriental scenes, but he is best known for his glasswork. He used opalescent glass to create a new and unique style of stained glass. He used the color of the glass itself to make pictures as opposed to the traditional style of painting directly on glass. His chief competitor was John La Farge.Tiffany is considered to be the first spokesman for modern art in America. As president of Tiffany Studios, he produced 'Tiffany Favrile glass,' for which he won many awards. In 1893 at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he won 54 medals. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in Paris in 1900. Tiffany won the Grand Prix at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and at St. Petersburg in 1901; and the gold medal at the Buffalo Exposition in 1901 and the Dresden Exposition that same year. His windows and lamps are today priceless. After his father's death, Tiffany became artistic director of Tiffany & Co. He was a member of the Century Club; American Water Color Society; New York Society of Fine Arts; Architectural League, Imperial Society of Fine Arts at Tokyo, Japan; and the Society Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
Stanford White
(b. 1853 NY – d. NYC 1906)
was one of America's most important architects and a partner in McKim, Mead & White, the Beaux-Arts architectural firm. White was the son of the Shakespearean scholar Richard Grant White. He began working for Henry Hobson Richardson of Gambrill & Richardson in Boston, and worked on Trinity Church there. Then he toured and studied in Europe for 18 months. On his return, he partnered with Charles Follen McKim and William Rutherford Mead. The firm was quickly one of the most successful in America. It built the original Madison Square Garden, Madison Square Presbyterian Church, the New York Herald Building, Washington Arch, and the Century Club. The latter two still stand. He built mansions on Long Island, from Southampton to Montauk, in the informal shingle style. He also built primary residences for the social elite (Vanderbilt and Astor) on Fifth Avenue.Unfortunately White may best be remembered for his death. He was murdered by Harry K. Thaw on the Madison Square roof garden because White had had an affair with Evelyn Nesbit (Thaw's wife). The affair had ended before Nesbit's marriage to Thaw, but Thaw was an insanely jealous man who beat her on their honeymoon until she revealed all the details of her former affair with Stanford White. The murder was a scandal. Thaw (a Pittsburgh railroad heir) was twice tried for murder, but in the end he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. In 1926, Thaw (d. 1947) wrote a book called 'The Traitor' in which he attempted to justify killing White. Nesbit (d. 1961) returned to Vaudeville and married, then divorced and finished her life in obscurity. White's reputation suffered for many years because of the circumstances of his death. White had a special four-car funeral train that left Grand Central Station for St. James, Long Island, where his funeral service was held in St. James Episcopal Church. Present at the services were his old partners. Arrangements had to be made to avoid the curious crowds. So hungry was the public for news of his scandalous death that a false rumor went around that a strange woman dressed in white had fainted in the church and caused a scene. His servants were reported to have wept. He was buried in the cemetery next to the church.
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1) 7th Regiment Armory Map [47]
