Walter Dabney Blair
Walter Dabney Blair was an American architect. He designed several buildings in Charlottesville, Virginia and, with James Edwin Ruthven Carpenter Jr., The Stahlman in Nashville, Tennessee, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Early life
Blair was born on June 14, 1877, in Amelia, Virginia, near Richmond. He attended Richmond College, the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, and the École des Beaux-Arts.Career
Blair taught Architectural Design at Cornell University in 1903–1904. He designed several buildings on the campus of the University of Virginia as well as the McIntire Public Library in Charlottesville. He also designed the Warner Library in Tarrytown, New York and the Edwin Gould Foundation building in New York City.The Charlottesville library, "a diminutive jewel of a building," follows the local tradition of classicism first set forth by Thomas Jefferson. Blair's Warner Library differs greatly from the many Carnegie libraries built during the same period across America, whose simplified design was guided by efficiency considerations. In Tarrytown, he opted for intricate scrollwork, fifteen-foot windows, Ionic columns,Grecian figural urns flanking the entrance, and an oculus in the lobby ceiling inspired by the Roman Pantheon. Blair's other notable local work, the 1926 bathhouse at Kingsland Point Park in Sleepy Hollow, also features Neoclassical elements.
With James Edwin Ruthven Carpenter Jr., he designed The Stahlman in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1906–1907. The building is considered one of the city's first skyscraper