Stanford White (1853-1906)

Architect, of McKim, Mead & White, New York

He was born in New York City and graduated from the University of New York. He studied architecture in the offices of Charles D. Gambrill and H.H. Richardson. He became a senior partner in the celebrated architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White that designed so many of the most decadent Beaux-Arts mansions and public buildings during New York's Gilded Age. Among the partners, it was Stanford White who undertook the many domestic commissions from the wealthiest of Gilded Age America. He was considered to be the arbiter of good taste, but he was also the same man who is remembered for being the host at the infamous 'Pie Girl' event: "A huge pastry was brought in, the waiters chanted 'Six-a-song-of-Sixpence,' and at the punch line, the pie opened, a flock of canaries flew out, followed by a sixteen-year old girl, swathed in black veiling. The press castigated the evening as a bacchanalian revel".

In 1884, he married Bessie, daughter of John Lawrence Smith, of Smithtown, Long Island, Member of the New York Assembly. They had one son, Larry, and lived between 121 East 21st Street in New York City and "Box Hill" on Long Island. In 1906, in a scandal that shook Gilded Age society to its core, White was shot dead by a jealous husband, Harry Kendall Thaw (son of a Pittsburgh railroad baron) for seducing another sixteen-year old girl, Harry Thaw's showgirl wife. Thaw was acquitted on the grounds of insanity.

Parents (2)

Richard Grant White

of New York City; Literary & Music Critic, Author, and Shakespearean Scholar

1822-1895

Alexina (Mease) White

Mrs "Nina" Alexina (Mease) White

1830-1921

Spouse (1)

Elizabeth (Smith) White

Mrs "Bessie" Elizabeth Springs (Smith) White

1862-1950

Partner (1)

Evelyn Nesbit

Mrs Evelyn (Nesbit) Thaw, Clifford; Actress, Paramour of Stanford White

1884-1967

Children (1)

Lawrence Grant White

"Larry" White, Architect & Author, of McKim, Mead & White, New York

1887-1956

Associated Houses (8)

Whitney Mansion

871 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York

The Manse

Old Westbury, New York

Rosecliff

Newport, Rhode Island

Harbor Hill

Roslyn, New York

Mills Mansion

Staatsburg, New York

Astor Courts

Rhinebeck, New York

Joseph Pulitzer Mansion

Manhattan, New York

Sunnyside

Newport, Rhode Island

Elizabeth, The Queen Mother (2013), by Hugo Vickers