Stanford White's Great-Grandson To Lecture At Historical Society

Samuel White, FAIA The Garden City Historical Society is proud to welcome Samuel G. White, great-grandson of the famed architect Stanford White, as a guest lecturer in the Society's "Meet the Author" series. Mr. White's presentation is combined with a book signing of his newest work, Stanford White Architect, published by Rizzoli in 2008, and co-authored with Elizabeth White. The free lecture and book signing will take place on Wednesday September 23, 7 p.m., at The Garden City Historical Society Museum, 109 Eleventh Street. Copies of Mr. White's book will be available for sale at the lecture.

Also with Ms. White, Samuel White co-authored McKim, Mead & White: The Masterworks, which documents that firm's institutional and commercial designs, and The Houses of McKim, Mead & White, which is the definitive monograph of their residential commissions. A practicing architect and a great-grandson of Stanford White, Sam White brings an unusual perspective to his discussion of the work of America's most famous architectural partnership.

Because of his connections to the Garden City Company, Stanford White and the firm of McKim, Mead & White was chosen to remodel the Old Garden City Hotel, circa 1895. After the fire of 1899, McKim, Mead & White was commissioned to design a larger version of the damaged hotel. Completed in 1901, this beautiful Georgian Revival building with its distinctive cupola became famous for its architecture, was a social center of the Village and the pride of Garden City. Its demolition in the early 1970s precipitated the formation of The Garden City Historical Society.

The September 23 lecture and book signing is sponsored by Paul Rice Architecture. Paul is a native of Garden City and his architectural firm has specialized in custom residential homes since 1990. He has completed many renovations and worked on new houses in Garden City, as well as Southampton, Easthampton, Wainscott and Amagansett, and has also done interior renovations of apartments in New York City. Recently Mr. Rice completed a house on Ninth Street in Garden City for the Steinbach's. Mr. Rice is passionate about preserving the character of this unique town.

As a partner of Platt Byard Dovell White Architects, Sam White oversees a general practice, focusing on designs that introduce new interventions to historic settings in ways that both reinforce and reinterpret their contexts. The firm's current opportunities to explore the intersection of old and new include a major addition to The Education Alliance's neo-Renaissance headquarters on East Broadway; a nine story, mixed-use addition to Congregation Shearith Israel's landmark synagogue on Central Park West, and the restoration of the Park Avenue Armory at 66th Street. Mr. White's recent projects include an addition to the landmark Hulbert Mansion in Park Slope for Poly Prep's lower school; the restoration of the Louis Armstrong House in Corona, Queens; the adaptive reuse of the W.G. Loew mansion for The Spence School, and the Duane Library for Fordham University.

Mr. White is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and an Academician of the National Academy of Design; an adjunct assistant professor of Fine Arts at New York University, a trustee of the Preservation League of New York State, the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial, Portsmouth Abbey School, and the Green-Wood Cemetery, and is a member of the advisory committees of the General Theological Seminary and the New York School of Interior Design. Mr. White is a graduate of Harvard College (A.B., 1968) and the University of Pennsylvania (Master of Architecture, 1975).

Please visit The Garden City Historical Society website, www.gardencityhistoricalsociety.org, for additional events this fall.