The Chautauqua Institution has received quite a bit of press these days because they are contemplating the demolition of a structure at the very heart of their community, the Amphitheater. Built in 1893, the
Chautauqua Amphitheater has served as meeting place, concert venue and educational center for the community. Much attention has been given to the social history of the structure but very little attention has been given to the architectural heritage of Chautauqua and its early prolific architect, Ellis G. Hall. Given his relation to J. L. Silsbee, I thought it would be worthwhile to do a little digging about Hall and his work in this unique community.
Born in 1850, Ellis Gray Hall was a Massachusetts native. He got his start in the architecture profession early. There are no records that he was formally educated but by the age of 18, he was working in the Boston firm of John A. Mitchell. In 1870, he was working for a firm in the same building as the prestigious firm, Ware & Van Brunt. This is likely where he met Joseph Silsbee. Silsbee was a student at MIT and was working in Ware's office. Several years later, Hall moved to Syracuse 1874 and began working for Silsbee's firm.
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| Thomas Emory's summer home, "Boyden", on Cazenovia Lake. Silsbee & Hall architects (1884), demolished. |
Hall's employment and eventual partnership with Silsbee played a strong roll in the development of Hall's architectural interests. The work he did for Silsbee was varied as Silsbee's office was overseeing works of every type and size. Ultimately, the specialty was in the design of single family homes in the Queen Anne and Shingle Styles. An excellent example of this type of work is the home that the firm executed for a Syracuse doctor, Thomas Emory, in 1884.
After the firm dissolved its partnership in Syracuse and Silsbee moved to Chicago, in 1885, Hall seemed to seamlessly carry on the practice. During those early years, he worked on churches, hotels, commercial buildings and, of course, homes. One of his most prominent extant works in the city is the central tower to
Horatio Nelson White's Hall of Languages, a centerpiece to the Syracuse University campus.
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| Hall of Languages at Syracuse University. Structure by architect Horatio Nelson White (1873) and central tower by architect Ellis G. Hall (1887), standing. |
Ellis Hall's association with Chautauqua began when he helped form the
Good Will Congregational Church in Syracuse. He and his wife, Susan, lived in a home of his design that was very close by. He worked with church superintendent, Dr. William A. Duncan, to create Sunday School and Church plans for a beautiful brick structure located on Syracuse's West Side. Duncan was an avid proponent of Sunday School programs and education in churches in general and helped form several such programs in New York. In 1883, Duncan became the superintendent for the Chautauqua Institute, a previously established center for adult education on Chautauqua Lake in Western New York.
The first known substantial structure that Hall designed for Chautauqua was the "University Building", also known as the "Moorish Barn". This whimsical structure was a large school to permanently house Chautauqua classes. The Moorish Revival style seems unique but it would have been a style that Hall was well accustomed to producing after years of
practice with Silsbee.
His work on a large commercial building, The Arcade, is a more refined shingle and clapboard clad structure. Coupled with the University Building, it shows that Hall was Duncan's preferred architect for work at Chautauqua. In a place that had previously been populated by small cottages and scattered tents and gazebos, it also shows that there was an intention to make the community a more permanent and substantial institution with refined and varied architectural designs.
One of the more whimsical designs was for a Power House (which later became the Men's Club). The intent was to create a structure that looked like an English castle on the lakefront.
In addition to structures that were specifically commissioned by Duncan, Hall was also hired to design structures for some of the individual church organizations that had a permanent presence at Chautauqua. Two very different structures were created for the Methodist Episcopal and Presbyterian Headquarters. The Methodist Episcopal Headquarters were designed to look like a series of different clapboard-clad structures, connected by a wide veranda. The veranda is supported by beautifully detailed Corinthian columns. The Presbyterian Headquarters was at first designed as a stone Romanesque structure. At the time, it would have been the most permanent-looking and substantial structure at Chautauqua. For some reason, the design changed and the resulting structure is a brick Classical Revival structure. It too has a wide veranda across the front but it retains the original design intent of being more symmetrical and solid-looking than other structures in the community.
The extent of Hall's work at Chautauqua is not known and only a fraction of what is known is represented here. What we can tell by existing photographs is that the work had great variety and that it set the tone for future substantial architect-designed structures. The fact that many of these structures are still standing and are in use is a testament to the community and to the original architect.
As is the case with most architects of this period, there are no office records and little information about their lives and work. Throughout Hall's career, he moved from Syracuse to Massachusetts to Jamestown, NY and back to Syracuse. It is not clear why but he moved to California after the turn of the century. He eventually moved to San Diego and in the early 1900's was working for his former famous employee,
Irving Gill. Years later, he was working for an architect in Oakland, California that specialized in bungalows and Arts & Crafts style homes. Though several of his buildings still survive in Syracuse and Jamestown, his most significant extant legacy is in the work he did at Chautauqua.
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