R. H. Robertson


Robert Henderson Robertson was an American architect who designed numerous houses, institutional and commercial buildings, and churches. He is known for his wide-variety of works and commissions, ranging from private residences such as Jacqueline Kennedy's childhood home Hammersmith Farm and the Adirondacks Great Camp Santanoni, great civic buildings like Southport's Pequot Library for the Marquand Family to some of the earliest steel skyscrapers in New York City.
Robertson was one of the architects of choice for the late nineteenth century titans of industry, and designed several buildings for the extended Vanderbilt Family, including Shelburne Farms and the outbuildings at the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site.

Life and career

Robertson was born in Philadelphia to Scottish parents Archibald Robertson and Elizabeth Henderson. He was educated in Scotland, then graduated from Rutgers College in 1869. He apprenticed for several years in Philadelphia with Henry A. Sims, then moved to New York to work, first for George B. Post, then in 1873-74 for Edward Tuckerman Potter. Having completed one of the first houses in America to manifest the "Queen Anne style", a cottage for Theodore Timson in Sea Bright, New Jersey, he formed a partnership with Potter's half-brother, William Appleton Potter, who had also trained with Post. Their partnership lasted from 1875 to 1881, during which time they worked mostly in a free Gothic Revival style, with Robertson as the junior partner responsible for the firm's residential commissions. In the 1880s, working on his own, he fell under the influence of H.H. Richardson's "Richardsonian Romanesque" a freely-handled revival style that depended for its effect on strong massing and the bold use of rustication. In 1894, he finished construction of Southport's Pequot Library Association. Founded by the influential Marquand and Monroe families, Pequot Library is a special collections institution. In the 1890s, in the wake of the "White City" of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, he began to work in a classical style.
He married Charlotte Markoe and they had one son. Their son, Thomas Markoe Robertson would also become an architect and in 1924 marry Cordelia Biddle Duke, formerly Mrs. Angier Buchanan Duke.
Robertson died on June 3, 1919, at William S. Webb's Adirondack lodge in Nehasane, Hamilton County, New York, which he had designed. He is buried in Southampton, New York.

Commissions

Potter & Robertson (1875-1881)

During his New York partnership with William Appleton Potter the firm designed many summer vacation cottages in Newport, Rhode Island, and the Jersey Shore, beginning with the Bryce Gray residence in Long Branch, New Jersey. Potter & Robertson also designed:
Robertson's Park Row Building at 15 Park Row, built for August Belmont, was, for a brief period, the world's tallest office building. Among his many other commissions in New York City and elsewhere:
In 1902, Robertson took on as partner Robert Burnside Potter, nephew of William Potter. They designed a cottage, perhaps several, for Regis H. Post in Bayside, Long Island.
  • Hugh D. Auchincloss House 33 East 67th Street.
  • House of Relief Ambulance Annex 9 Jay Street, was attached by an enclosed overhead bridge to the House of Relief, New York Hospital across Staple Street; within the Tribeca Historic District.