Harvey Ellis

Harvey Ellis (born Oct. 17, 1852, Rochester, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 2, 1904, Syracuse, N.Y.) was an American architect and painter, one of the notable architectural renderers of his time.

Ellis, the son of a prominent Rochester, N.Y., family, was dismissed from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 1872. Little is known about his activities during the next five years. Speculation decades later led to the supposition that during that time he worked for Henry Hobson Richardson in Albany, N.Y., but it is unlikely that Ellis, who then considered himself an artist and had no architectural experience, could have found a position in that prestigious firm. After possibly studying with architect Arthur Gilman in New York City, Ellis established an architectural practice with his younger brother, Charles, in Rochester in 1879. While working as an architect, he simultaneously was active as a painter and a member of the Rochester Art Club, which he had helped establish in 1877.

From 1886 to 1893 he worked for several firms: Charles Mould and then J. Walter Stevens in St. Paul, Minn.; Leroy Sunderland Buffington and then Orff and Orff in Minneapolis, Minn.; Eckel and Mann in St. Joseph, Mo.; and George Mann and Randall, Ellis, and Baker in St. Louis, Mo. During those years his published renderings of Richardsonian Romanesque and Chateauesque architectural designs were imitated by numerous other American architects and renderers. In later years some of their work was misidentified as that of Ellis.

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Architecture: The Built World

An unbuilt 28-story skyscraper design published by Buffington in 1888 that made use of a skeletal iron frame has been attributed to Ellis, but it more likely was designed by another office employee, as yet unidentified. Buffington later claimed, probably inaccurately, that the idea of using an iron skeleton occurred to him as early as 1880–81, thus predating the celebrated first use of a metal skeleton by William Le Baron Jenney for the Home Insurance Company Building (1884–85) in Chicago.

Ellis returned to Rochester in 1893 and resumed an architectural practice with his brother. He also produced many paintings and became deeply involved in the American Arts and Crafts movement. He spent the last months of his life in Syracuse, N.Y., working as an architect for Gustav Stickley. He contributed several architectural designs published in 1903 in The Craftsman, Stickley’s monthly magazine.