Holman K. Wheeler


Holman K. Wheeler was a prolific Massachusetts architect. Wheeler is responsible for designing more than 400 structures in the city of Lynn alone, including the iconic High Rock Tower which is featured prominently on the Lynn city seal. While practicing in Lynn and Boston over a career spanning at least 35 years Wheeler designed structures throughout the Essex County area, including Haverhill, Marblehead, Newburyport, Salem, Swampscott, and Lynn. Wheeler is responsible for a total of five Lynn structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places, more than any other person or firm.

Life

Holman King Wheeler was born October 26, 1859, in Berlin, Massachusetts. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then located in Boston. He graduated in 1882. He had worked in the offices of Lynn architects beginning in 1878, and began working on his own by 1883. In 1884 he formed the firm of Wheeler & Northend in Lynn, with Salem architect W. Wheelwright Northend. Northend resumed his independent practice around 1893, and Wheeler continued alone. In 1904 he established a partnership with Charles L. Betton, Wheeler & Betton. Betton had left by 1914, and Wheeler established Wheeler & Johnson with Leonard P. Johnson. By 1919, Wheeler had left the Lynn area, heading south to Boston. He did at least one project from his office in that city, but had retired to his and his wife's home in Newton by 1920.

Partners

Northend

William Wheelwright Northend was born in 1857 in Salem to later . He was the younger brother to Mary Harrod Northend. Originally intending to practice law, he graduated from Bowdoin College in 1880. Turning to architecture, he worked for Hartwell & Richardson and Cobb & Frost. He then attended M. I. T. for a year before studying in Paris. Prior to establishing a firm with Wheeler, he had opened an office in Salem. After the firm's dissolution, he practiced alone for a year before his death in 1894. He was the architect of Swampscott's Phillips High School, opened in 1894 and demolished c.2018.

Betton

Charles Louis Betton was born in 1870, and died in 1934 in Lynn. After leaving Wheeler, Betton established his own office. He designed the Pickering School in 1916 on Conomo Ave, Lynn. He also did extensive industrial work.

Johnson

Leonard P. Johnson was a consulting architect for Willett, Sears and Company until January 1, 1914, when he took over the office of George A. Cornet in Lynn after Cornet was elected the city's commissioner of public property. By 1923, he was an architect and construction engineer for the American Woolen Company and had moved to the company's Shawsheen Village. He was also an architect for Coolidge Shepley Bulfinch and Abbott and did residential work in Andover, Massachusetts. He died on March 8, 1967, at the Masonic Home in Charlton, Massachusetts, at the age of 89.

Architectural works

Wheeler & Northend, 1884-1893

Holman K. Wheeler, 1893-1904

  • 1894 - The Phillips School, Greenwood Avenue, Swampscott, Massachusetts
  • * Sources disagree on whether Northend or Wheeler was the architect.
  • * First High School in Swampscott
  • * Demolished c.2018
  • 1895 - Naumkeag Building, 203 Essex St, Salem, Massachusetts
  • 1895 - Hugh E. Murphy Building, Washington St near Monroe St
  • 1895 - Proctor Building, 31 Exchange St, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • 1895 - Edward Heffernan Block, 516-520 Washington Street, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • * Demolished September 2021
  • 1897 - Henry B. Falls Apartments, 110-120 Broad St, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • 1900 - Bacheller School, 35 Lynnfield St, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • 1900 - Jackman School, School St, Newburyport, Massachusetts
  • * Demolished.
  • 1901 - Lynn Business College, 112 Exchange St, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • 1902 - Eugene A. Putnam Apartments, 95 Union St, Lynn, Massachusetts

Wheeler & Betton, 1904-1914

  • 1904 - High Rock Tower, High Rock Tower Reservation, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • * Listed on National Register of Historic Places
  • 1904 - Lennox Building, 184-186 Market St, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • * Demolished.
  • 1904 - Littlefield Building, 604 Essex St, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • 1909 - Goddard Bros. Store, 76 Market St, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • 1911 - Brewster Apartments, 26 Broad St, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • 1912 - Arthur Wellington Pinkham House, 311 Western Ave, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • * Now the Lucia Lighting Company

Wheeler & Johnson, 1914-c.1918

  • 1915 - English High School, 498 Essex St, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • * The James Street wing.
  • 1915 - Littlefield Building, 604 Essex St, Lynn, Massachusetts
  • 1917 - A. J. Mulholland Tannery, 14 Proctor St, Salem, Massachusetts

Holman K. Wheeler, c.1918-1919