Central New York: Syracuse & Environs

Welcome and Introduction
Lisa Koenigsberg (Founder / President, Initiatives in Art and Culture)

Chaos and Order: Searching for an American Architecture and Art 1870 – 1930.
Richard Guy Wilson (Commonwealth Professor Emeritus, Architectural History, University of Virginia)

Lecture (title TBC)
Bob Searing (Curator of History, Onondaga Historical Association)

Lecture (title TBC)
Tom Guiler (Director of Museum Affairs, Oneida Community Museum House and author, The Handcrafted Utopia: Arts and Crafts Communities in America’s Progressive Era [forthcoming, 2025])

Creating a 3D Replica of the Scarab Vase
Stephanie and Isaac Budmen (Budmen Industries)

Investigating Weller Pottery’s Luster Glazes by Jacques Sicard (1902 – 1907)
Richard Freiwald (Award-winning ceramicist and faculty member, Pingry School, Somerset County, NJ)

Close Examination: Stickley Sideboard
David Rudd (Co-owner, Dalton’s American Decorative Arts and Board Chair, The Gustav Stickley House Foundation)

Ceramic Nationals Exhibition
Garth Johnson

In 1932, Syracuse Museum of Fine Art director Anna Olmsted created a modest juried exhibition of studio ceramics by artists in New York State to honor the late Adelaide Alsop Robineau. This inaugural exhibition became the bedrock upon which the 20th-century Studio Ceramics Movement was built. Response to the first juried exhibition was immediate. Prominent artists lobbied Olmsted to open the exhibition to artists from other states, and the Ceramic Nationals were born.

The most cohesive collection of American Studio Pottery, containing early masterworks by seminal artists among them Maria Martinez, Peter Voulkos, Marguerite Wildenhain, Minnie Negoro, and Edwin and Mary Scheier, The Ceramic Nationals collection of over 200 purchase prizes traces the birth of the Studio Ceramics Movement during the Great Depression through its maturation in the 1950s and, ultimately, to the field’s splintering into factions in the early 1970s.

Remarks
Samantha Robinson (Vice President of Design, Heritage Auctions)

The Louise Rosenfeld Collection
Garth Johnson

The Stickley Factory was founded by Leopold and John George Stickley in 1900 when they purchased an existing company. In 1974, after Leopold Stickley’s death, former employee and friend Alfred Audi and his wife Aminy purchased the company which then quickly outgrew the Fayetteville factory. In 1985, the new Stickley headquarters opened in Manlius, New York with a larger, more modern manufacturing space and showroom. During the visit, we will view skilled artisans creating and finishing custom and standard pieces of furniture in woods such as white oak and cherry, using a variety of tools and techniques.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Estabrook Mansion (Ward Wellington Ward House, 1922 – 1923) is the largest surviving work of Ward Wellington Ward in the Syracuse area. Chicago-born Ward (1875 – 1932) worked mostly in Syracuse, designing over 250 buildings of which more than 120 were built and survive. He was Influenced by, and contributed to, the Arts & Crafts movement in architecture, and his decision to live and work in Syracuse was influenced by the presence there of Gustav Stickley who promoted the “Craftsman“-style of architecture, furniture, and other decorative arts in The Craftsman. Ward’s work is in varying styles but typically include details such as decorative cutouts in shutters. His designs are said to almost always include garages, gateways, and other small structures such as gazebos.

The Estabrook Mansion features important contributions by acclaimed artisans such as Henry Keck and Moravian Pottery & Tile Works. We will tour the privately-owned two-story, brick, stone, and half-timber Tudor Revival-style mansion, the contributing gardener’s residence, and combined garage, stables, and greenhouse building as well as the formal gardens.

While visiting Estabrook Mansion, we will enjoy My Life in the Arts and Crafts Movement: A Conversation with Cleota Reed.

A pioneering scholar and preservationist and a Syracuse resident, Reed has conducted groundbreaking research on Henry Chapman Mercer, authored publications about Mercer and the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, Syracuse China, the Henry Keck Stained Glass Studio, and Irene Sargent, and is an authority on architect Ward Wellington Ward.

The Marriott Syracuse Downtown is a 12-story Renaissance Revival structure with a brick- and terra-cotta-trimmed exterior. The hotel’s restauration and reconstruction included rebuilding of the parapets. Windows were restored or replaced, and storefronts were returned to their historic appearance. The main lobby, the Persian Terrace, and the Grand Ballroom were restored to their original appearance as were the corridors above (with the original coffin-lid valet doors made by Marcellus Casket Company) while 261 new rooms were created. A 1980 addition was renovated to provide meeting rooms and a second ballroom, and ground-floor restaurants were created.

Leaving the hotel and the Armory Square District, we will zig-zag though Syracuse’s rich and varied collection of government, cultural, and commercial buildings erected ca. 1870 – 1930. These include iconic buildings by famed Syracuse architects Joseph Lyman Silsbee (Syracuse Savings Bank, 1875; White Memorial Building, 1876; Amos Block, 1878), Horatio Nelson White (Gridley Building, 1867), Archimedes Russell (Gere Building, 1894; Onondaga County Courthouse, 1904 – 1906), Charles Colton (City Hall, 1889 – 1893), and Melvin King (Niagara Mohawk Building, 1932, one of America’s most magnificent Deco / Moderne buildings). We will view landmark locations of the Abolitionist Movement, the Suffragist Movement, and the Erie Canal, pausing in Clinton Square and Fayette Park for recently restored sculptural monuments of the American Renaissance, including works by Gail Sherman Corbett. The walk ends on Montgomery Street with a visit to St. Paul’s Syracuse (Henry Dudley, 1884 – 1885).

Landmark Theatre (Thomas Lamb, 1928 with restoration since 2000 led by Holmes▪King▪Kallquist & Associates in collaboration with EverGreene Studios), 362 S. Salina St., Syracuse, NY, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1928, Thomas Lamb, a renowned movie palace architect, completed the Landmark Theatre (which predates two of Loew’s “Oriental palaces” in New York City) in a style Lamb called  “European Byzantine Romanesque.” Holmes▪King▪Kallquist & Associates has been involved in the theater’s overall restoration, having first been engaged in 2000 to restore, in collaboration with Evergreene Studios, ornate plaster ornament and decorative painting in the main lobby’s walls and ceilings. Damaged areas were touched up and blended, intact finishes cleaned, and extensive gilded areas restored. Metal work was also restored and light fixtures cleaned and returned to operation. Finally, the extensive Indo–Persian murals were carefully conserved and restored. The Landmark is on the National Register of Historic Places. 

We will view the OHA’s significant collections of Arts & Crafts Movement material relating to Gustav Stickley (furniture), Henry Keck (stained glass), Ward Wellington Ward (architectural drawings), and Syracuse China, as well as exhibitions exploring Syracuse history, abolition, Native American people in the region, and a permanent Syracuse China exhibition.

The OHA is housed in the former Central New York Telephone and Telegraph Building (Henry W. Wilkinson, 1895 – 1896).

Built by industrialist and abolitionist George Barnes in an Italian villa style, the mansion was later the home of Frank H. Hiscock, chief justice of the New York State Court of Appeals who, with his wife Mary Elizabeth, later had it remodeled it in the Colonial Revival style.

The Gustav Stickley House (Wellington Tabor, 1900; renovations, Gustav Stickley, 1902) was purchased by Stickley in June 1900. While its exterior resembles that of other houses in the neighborhood, the interior, with its Stickley-designed chestnut wall paneling and beams, is regarded as the first comprehensive American Craftsman residential interior in the United States.

On December 24, 1901 a chimney fire greatly damaged the house. Stickley renovated the interior in 1902 by Stickley, publishing renderings of the interior and floor plans in the December 1902 issue of The Craftsman. After the death of his wife in 1919 and until his death in 1942, Gustav lived at the house with his daughter Barbara Stickley Wiles and her family.

The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

After the house lay vacant for over 20 years, a comprehensive exterior restoration was completed by the University Neighborhood Preservation Association in 2018. Crawford & Stearns provided architectural services in Phase I of the project and in 2018 received the Harley J. McKee Award from the Preservation Association of Central New York. The Gustav Stickley House Foundation supports and oversees the Phase II interior restoration for which Crawford & Stearns has prepared concept design drawings.

The project received a Save America’s Treasures grant from the National Park Service in 2020 and grants from the New York State Environmental Protection Fund and the NYS Community Resiliency Economic Sustainability Technology Program (CREST) in 2022.

Founded in 1980, Dalton’s has established itself as an exceptional resource for original Arts & Crafts furnishings and decorative accessories. The responsibilities of operating the gallery are shared equally by co-principals David Rudd and Debbie Goldwein.

The Willard Memorial Chapel and Welch Building was constructed as part of the Auburn Theological Seminary by Rochester architect A.J. Warner and Auburn builder Barnes & Stout. The interior of Willard Chapel was entirely designed by Tiffany Glass and Decorating Co. of New York City and includes 14 opalescent windows, a rose window, a large figure window, nine “Moorish” chandeliers, memorial tablets of glass mosaic tile and gilt bronze, furnishings of oak inlaid with metal and glass mosaic, and a ceiling with gold leaf stencils and mosaic flooring.

A testament to the Utopian Oneida Community’s core beliefs about communal life, the House was built in four phases between 1861 and 1878. Its large scale and interior layout were designed to serve the 300-person commune that lived and worked there as one family. Each building phase illustrates evolving mid-19th–century architectural styles and related innovations.

Founded in 1848 by the itinerant preacher, John Humphrey Noyes, this religiously based Perfectionist community challenged contemporary social views on property ownership, gender roles, child-rearing practices, monogamous marriage, and work. The Oneida Community’s insistence on life-long learning and its determination to make all work enjoyable fostered a work ethic and industriousness that sustained the group for over 30 years, making them one of the most successful and longest-lasting communal experiments of the 19th century. Affected by both internal and external pressures, the Community disbanded in 1880 and formed a joint-stock corporation, Oneida Community Ltd., to take control of their communally owned properties and businesses, including the Mansion House. The joint-stock company changed its name during the early 20th century to Oneida Ltd. and achieved worldwide recognition for the tableware it produced in Sherrill, NY.

Conference concludes.