Henry Ives Cobb


Henry Ives Cobb was an architect from the United States. Based in Chicago in the last decades of the 19th century, he was known for his designs in the Richardsonian Romanesque and Victorian Gothic styles.

Biography

Cobb was born in Brookline, Massachusetts to Albert Adams and Mary Russell Candler Cobb.
In Chicago, Cobb and partner Charles S. Frost designed Potter Palmer's mansion on Lake Shore Drive; the Chicago Varnish Company Building—listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as a Chicago Landmark; the Episcopal Church of the Atonement at 5749 North Kenmore Avenue—also on the National Register of Historic Places; the Chicago Federal Building ; the Newberry Library; the Fisheries Building at the World's Columbian Exposition; and many pre-1900 buildings at Lake Forest College and the University of Chicago. Elsewhere, he designed the Liberty Tower, a Perpendicular-style Skyscraper in downtown Manhattan, that was converted to residences in 1980; the Olive Building in St. Louis and co-designed the King Edward Hotel in Toronto. Cobb moved to Washington, D.C., in 1897 to escape the Chicago grime, which damaged his cherished art collection. Cobb is responsible for The University of Chicago Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, WI, constructed from 1895 to 1897, with its Greco-Roman terra-cotta architectural detail.

Family

Henry Ives Cobb's grandmother, Augusta Adams Cobb, controversially abandoned her husband, Henry Cobb, and five of her seven children in 1843, and married Brigham Young as a plural wife.
Cobb and wife Emma Martin Smith had 10 children, seven of whom survived into adulthood. The children were: architect and author Henry Ives Cobb, Jr., Cleveland Cobb, Leonore Cobb, Candler Cobb, Elliot Cobb, Priscilla Cobb, Alice Cobb, Boughton Cobb, Russell Cobb, and Emerson Cobb,.

Works

BuildingLocationDatesNotesImage
Union Club of ChicagoWashington Place at Dearborn Street1881Designed by Henry Ives Cobb
Palmer Mansion1350 North Lake Shore Drive
Chicago		1885Designed by Henry Ives Cobb
Harriet F. Rees House2110 S. Prairie Avenue
Chicago		1888Designed by Cobb & Frost.
Tippecanoe Place620 West Washington Avenue
South Bend, Indiana		1889Designed by Henry Ives Cobb. Recognized as a National Historic Landmark.
Chicago Athletic Association Building12 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago		1893Designed by Henry Ives Cobb
Garfield Building1965 E. 6th Street
Cleveland, Ohio		1893Designed by Henry Ives Cobb
Newberry Library60 West Walton Street
Chicago		1893Designed by Henry Ives Cobb and William Poole
St. Cecilia Music Center24 Ransom NE
Grand Rapids, Michigan		1893Designed by Henry Ives Cobb
Chicago Varnish Company Building33 West Kinzie Street
Chicago		1895Designed by Henry Ives Cobb
Olive Building721 Olive Street
St. Louis		1896Designed by Henry Ives Cobb; 1902 addition by Mauran, Russel & Garden
Former Chicago Historical Society Building632 North Dearborn Street
Chicago		1896Designed by Henry Ives Cobb
Yerkes Observatory373 W. Geneva Street
Williams Bay, Wisconsin		1897Designed by Henry Ives Cobb
Woodward & Lothrop Store1025 F Street NW
Washington, D.C.		1897Designed by Henry Ives Cobb; subsequent expansions 1902-1927
King Edward Hotel37 King Street East
Toronto		1903Designed by Henry Ives Cobb and E. J. Lennox for George Gooderham’s Toronto Hotel Company
The Kip-Riker Mansion432 Scotland Road
South Orange, New Jersey		1903Designed by Henry Ives Cobb for Ira A. Kip, Jr. Presently Temple Sharey Tefilo Israel-
Chicago Federal BuildingDearborn and Adams Streets
Chicago		1905Designed by Henry Ives Cobb
Liberty Tower55 Liberty Street
New York City		1909Designed by Henry Ives Cobbs