Category: Late 19th Century Architecture

An epic campaign ended today as the first rolls of  historic wallpaper were applied to the walls of the FDR Suite study. You may remember all the trials and tribulations we had in piecing together the pattern from fragments I discovered last summer behind the large radiator. Then Kari Pei, Head of Design at Wolf-Gordon [...]

I was sitting in the Suite a few weeks ago, looking around, and I must admit to being quite impressed. With furniture mostly in place, pictures on the walls, mementos scattered everywhere, the place is really starting to become a real Victorian room with personality. This last is truly the key, because our quest is [...]

Hello All!
Thanks to your support and generosity, things keep marching along. Further additions for you to contemplate:

Just slightly crinkled from the crate: here’s the first piece of wall decoration in Lathrop’s bedroom, where the narrative theme will be hunting, horses and football: a ca 1890 tapestry depicting a Renaissance chase. Machine woven, this lovely textile [...]

It seems like ages, but here, at last, are some of the first views, post renovations. The walls are still bare, and the furniture a bit sparse, but we’re getting there!
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A thousand thanks to all of you who have helped us move this project forward! Special kudos to our alumni donors  and project supporters (you [...]

Check out the great article in the Art & Antiques Section of the Times, published: March 11, 2010 online, and in the March 12 print edition!

THERE’S A NEW DEAL AT ROOSEVELT’S DORM

Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, corporate sponsors, members, and the Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust, we are finally under construction!
A few snaps:
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On a a furnishing note, thanks to the craftsmanship of Lary Shaffer, “Lathrop’s” Morris Chair is done, just awaiting cushions. What a beauty!

Will all this construction be done before the 27th?  I’m told [...]

Shortly after last year’s FDR dinner, I received an email from a certain Mr. Dave Robinson in Maine, inquiring as to whether or not we’d be interested in taking a look at some of the Harvard photos and ephemera he’d inherited from his grandfather, Chester Robinson, ‘04, a friend and a classmate of FDR’s. I [...]

(This is the fifth and final installment in a continuing series taken from the unpublished notes of filmmaker Pare Lorentz. For the introduction to these articles, click HERE.)
The Lathrop Brown Interviews: Part V – Endgame
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1921 and Thereafter
After FDR was stricken with polio, LB visited him frequently. He says he was most impressed by [...]

In this the third in a series of articles on FDR’s longtime friend and Harvard roommate, Lathrop Brown, we take a break from the Pare Lorentz interviews to focus a bit on Brown’s own political career. While FDR battled his way into the New York State Assembly, LB also (coincidentally?) became interested in politics, as [...]

Many of you asked to see a bit more of the Union as FDR knew it, so here are some additional shots I was able to dig up in the Harvard Archives.
First, the basement plan I showed you before, though  this time with the complete rotunda area. FDR would have been quite familiar with this [...]