BLDG51. News and Events | john vinci kodachrome slides of louis h. sullivan’s henry babson house during its demolition in 1960

08 Jul john vinci kodachrome slides of louis h. sullivan’s henry babson house during its demolition in 1960

July 8, 2022 in Bldg. 51, Events & Announcements, Featured Posts, Miscellaneous by Eric

these seldom seen dated john vinci kodachrome slides offer a rare glimpse at louis h. sullivan’s babson house (1908) during its demolition in 1960. the images represent the only visual record of the babson house’s untimely demise documented in color. the digitized slides have not been edited or altered in any way; i strongly feel they capture a raw and emotionally charged photographic expression of the senseless destruction of the babson house.

the henry babson house (1908) was one of only a few residences designed by louis h. sullivan with george grant elmslie as his draftsman. the building additionally represented one of the last dwellings that sullivan would design before his decline into poverty. the state of his finances is clear from an anecdote leading up to the commission: henry babson purportedly overheard a group of architects complaining about lack of work and commenting that even “the master” could not find work; babson asked them who that was, and ended up hiring sullivan to construct the mansion on his 23-acre estate in riverside. at the time, sullivan had been working separately from dankmar adler for over a decade (the firm dissolved in 1895) but continued to work out of his office in the auditorium building’s tower.

the babson house is often noted as exhibiting design characteristics used by sullivan’s mentee frank lloyd wright (e.g., overhanging eaves, long, horizontal lines, etc.), but the inclusion of polychromatic terra cotta was all sullivan. his concepts were evident throughout the building elements, but it still represents a work that may be seen as overlapping with the work of his students. elmslie would design the major aspects of the house, including the interior decoration and furniture. in fact all of the existing sketches, presentations and working drawings were in elmslie’s hand.

when the house was faced with demolition in 1960, richard nickel, his brother donald, john vinci, and david norris documented its death and salvaged its ornament. nickel expressed very little interest in the leaded glass windows. instead, he and his associates spent many days extracting terra cotta, oak wood grilles, and the cedar wood second-floor loggia, which was one of the largest “systems” removed from the house before it was quickly flattened in february of that year.