Hermann V. von Holst (1874–1955) was an American architect practicing in Chicago, Illinois, and Boca Raton, Florida, from the 1890s to the 1940s. He is best remembered for agreeing to take on the responsibility of heading up Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural practice when Wright went off to Europe with Mamah Cheney in 1909.
Von Holst was born in Freiburg, Germany, on June 17, 1874, the son of the eminent historian Hermann Eduard von Holst and a Hoboken, New Jersey, native, Annie Isabelle Hatt, who had married on April 23, 1872, in New York City. The von Holsts lived in Germany with visits to the United States until they emigrated from Germany to Chicago in 1891, where von Holst, Sr., became head of the department of history at the University of Chicago.
In Chicago
Herman V. von Holst graduated from the architecture program at the University of Chicago in 1893 and the architecture program at MIT in 1896. He found employment as a draughtsman at the prestigious architectural firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, in their Chicago office, one of the successor firms of the celebrated architect Henry Hobson Richardson. By 1900, von Holst was head draughtsman at the firm. Following extensive travels, von Holst opened his own practice in Chicago in 1905, with offices in The Rookery Building, Chicago. In 1909, he moved his office to Chicago's Steinway Hall, where he was among a collegial group of Prairie School architects.
Active in professional organizations, von Holst served as treasurer of the Architectural League of America in 1905. He published several books on architectural subjects, including Cyclopedia of Drawing (1907) and Modern American Homes (1913) which featured work of fellow architects, including Walter Burley Griffin, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Lawrence Buck. He served as professor of architectural design at the Chicago School of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago. He also taught design in the Department of Architecture at the Armour Institute of Technology (later IIT).
In the period 1904–1906, von Holst created summer countryside estate architecture in the White Mountains of New Hampshire for socially prominent and wealthy clients, including Pittsburgh glassmaking millionaire George A. Macbeth and International Harvester partner John Glessner, whose Chicago Glessner House was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson.
Overseeing Frank Lloyd Wright's practice
As has been increasingly well documented, before Wright and Mrs. Cheney went off together to Europe, Wright asked various architects to take on the responsibility of his office, including Marion Mahony and George Grant Elmslie, both of whom refused. Finally, he arranged for Hermann V. von Holst to oversee the work. Along with continuing Wright architects Isabel Roberts and John Van Bergen, von Holst contracted with Marion Mahony (who as stipulated had complete control of architectural design) and her husband Walter Burley Griffin (for landscape architecture). Together, they brought what work they could of Wright's to completion—much of it modified to Marion Mahony Griffin's designs.
The happy result of this time period for the Prairie School is a graceful collection of Prairie Style residences in a Griffin-planned landscape on Millikin Place in Decatur, Illinois and a pair of charming Prairie homes, one by Wright and the other by von Holst and Mahony, across the street from each other in Grand Rapids. Unfortunately, Clara and Henry Ford did not grasp the potential of the home designed for them; by dismissing von Holst and Mahony, they ended up with a ponderous, ungainly home. Fair Lane as finally designed by others, has but rare hints of Prairie concepts remaining (the south end and in some of the outbuildings, such as Ford's beloved Powerplant). The Ford residence is awkward of proportion, cold in demeanor and unfortunate in detail.
Architectural historians have tended to underestimate von Holst's abilities and influence in the world of architecture. However, it is clear that a man with degrees from two outstanding architecture departments, who had served as head draughtsman for the leading firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, who taught design and served as treasurer of the Architectural League of America was a solid choice for this task. Also, architectural critics have tended either to undervalue or misattribute work done while Wright was mostly incommunicado in Europe. The output of Wright's office in the years 1909–1911 should be assessed on its own merit as Prairie School work of the first order by the design team headed by Marion Mahony under the auspices of von Holst.