Willis G. Hale

Willis Gaylord Hale (1848, Seneca Falls, New York – August 29, 1907, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a late-19th century architect who worked primarily in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His flamboyant highly-ornate style was popular in the 1880s and 1890s, but quickly fell out of fashion in the 20th century.

Hale came to Philadelphia in the 1860s, and apprenticed under Samuel Sloan and John McArthur, Jr. He married a niece of chemical manufacturer William Weightman, who was one of the largest landowners in the city. For Weightman, he designed dozens of blocks of rowhouses in North Philadelphia, and also for clients such as Peter Arrell Brown Widener and William L. Elkins. "Hale's genius was to take ... essentially identical rowhouses, with their mass-produced industrial parts and lathe-turned woodwork, and to make them distinctive."^[1] His facades often contrasted sculpture, tile, inventive brick and stone work, in high-Victorian style.

Hale designed city houses for Widener and Elkins, and a massive country house, Ravenhill, for Weightman in Germantown (now part of Philadelphia University).

Widener's city house was one of the most notable in Philadelphia. It was an ornate Flemish-style eclectic design in brownstone and brick, with a 53-foot (16.2 m) facade on Broad Street and a 144-foot (43.9 m) facade on Girard Avenue. The similarly-ornate interiors were decorated by George Herzog, and included murals of the Widener children in Renaissance dress. Almost an anachronism when completed in 1887, the family lived there only a dozen years before building a neo-classical palace in the suburbs. The city house served as a branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, 1900-1946; and became the Institute for Black Ministries at the Conwell School of Theology in 1970.^[2] The building suffered a catastrophic fire in 1980, and was demolished.

In 1892 Hale designed the Lorraine Apartment House at Broad and Fairmount Streets in Philadelphia. Now known as the Divine Lorraine Hotel, the building was purchased in 1948 by radio evangelist Father Divine.

Hale designed numerous ornate office buildings in Center City Philadelphia, but few survive unaltered. Hale built his own office building at the southwest corner of Chestnut and Juniper Streets (altered), an unsuccessful investment that almost bankrupted him.

Hale was a near-pauper in his later years, supported by the ever-loyal Weightman.

• 2100-block North Uber Street rowhouses, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1885-86).
• Peter Arrell Brown Widener mansion, northwest corner Broad Street and Girard Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1887, burned 1980, demolished).
• Ravenhill (William Weightman country house), 3480-90 School House Lane, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1887). Now part of Philadelphia University.
• Hale Building, 1326-28 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1887, altered).
• Divine Lorraine Hotel, Broad and Fairmount Streets, Philadelphia, PA (1894-96).

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  2100-block N. Uber St., Philadelphia, PA (1885-86).
• 
  P. A. B. Widener Mansion in 1973. In 1980 it burned, and was demolished.
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  Divine Lorraine Hotel, Broad & Fairmount Sts., Philadelphia, PA (1894-96).

Willis G. Hale at Philadelphia Architects and Buildings.

• James Foss, Willis Gaylord Hale and Philadelphia's Rebellion of the Picturesque: 1880-1890, masters thesis, Penn State University, 1964.
• Michael J. Lewis, " 'He was not a Connoisseur:' Peter Widener and his House," Nineteenth Century, vol. 12, no. 3/4 (1993).
• George E. Thomas, "Architectural Patronage and Social Stratification in Philadelphia between 1840 and 1920," The Divided Metropolis: Social and Spatial Dimensions of Philadelphia, 1800-1975, eds. William W. Cutler and Howard Gillette (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980).
• George E. Thomas, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, Girard Avenue Historic District. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 13 May 1985.
• Richard Webster, Philadelphia Preserved: Catalog of the Historic American Buildings Survey (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1976).