National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

CHAPTER FOUR
ANALYSIS OF HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE AND INTEGRITY BY
RESOURCE TYPE
ARCHITECTURAL RESOURCES, 1895-PRESENT
THE MCKIM, MEAD & WHITE PORTFOLIO 1249
While McKim, Mead & White became popular and prolific designers in many avenues of
the architectural realm, the following discussion will focus on its residential work, especially
those residences that were erected in suburban and rural areas.
Between 1879 and 1912 the firm received over three hundred residential commissions for
single family houses and to a far lesser extent for small apartments and attached dwellings,
representing just under 40 percent of their total client list for that period. Approximately
one hundred of the residential designs survive. 1250
McKim, Mead & White's residential practice was an integral part of their work; house
commissions defined the office and its partners - personally, artistically, and financially - at every
stage of their careers. 1251
Samuel White classifies three basic career phases represented in McKim, Mead &
White's residential designs, labeling them as "early, transitional, and mature." 1252 Leland Roth
divides the career of the firm into five categories, reflecting all of their work - not only
residential - and these perhaps describe a more accurate evolution to maturity. Roth's first two,
"Fledglings 1870-1879" and "New Firm 1879-1886," relate to the firm's early phase, with the
latter overlapping the transitional era; the middle one, "Renaissance 1886-1892," relates to the
transitional phase; and "Ensembles 1893-1899" and "Pinnacle 1900-1909" relate to the most
mature phase while all original partners remained alive. 1253 The more simple nomenclature
clearly describes the firm's artistic and integrated intellectual progress, but this classification is
somewhat elementary, applicable to almost any architectural firm that had a sustained career.
1249
The emphasis here is on the same decade Hyde Park was constructed. A more detailed discussion of
the firm's Beaux-Arts work immediately follows this section.
1250
Samuel White, The Houses of McKim, Mead & White (New York: Rizzoli in association with the
Museums at Stony Brook, 1998), 11.
1251
White, 12.
1252
White, 12.
1253
Roth, McKim, Mead & White, Architects. Roth's first chapter, entitled "Foundations 1840-1870," also
covers the earliest development of the three individual partners, but before they united into one firm.
225