Skip to main content

Harrie Thomas Lindeberg architectural drawings

 Collection
Identifier: MS 0312
Finding aid note: Stored onsite at the Woodson Research Center.

Scope and Contents

Harrie Thomas Lindeberg architectural drawings collection includes 85 architectural drawings on vellum and a framed rending of the Hugo V. Neuhaus residence, located in the Shadyside area of Houston, Texas.

Dates

  • 1922

Creator

Access Restriction

This material is open for research.

Conditions Governing Access

Stored onsite at the Woodson Research Center.

Use Restrictions

Permission to publish material from the Harrie Thomas Lindeberg Architectural Drawings collection must be obtained from the Woodson Research Center.

Biographical Sketch

Harrie Thomas Lindeberg (1879-1959) was a New York based society architect whose simple, clean-lined country home designs were significant in setting the style for early 20th century domestic American architecture. During his career he designed more than a hundred country houses, numerous suburban dwellings, and a smattering of public buildings.

Born April 10, 1879 in Bergen Point, New Jersey of Swedish immigrant parents, little is known of Lindeberg’s early years. He acquired his architectural training through an apprenticeship, from 1901 to 1906, at McKim, Mead and White, the leading architectural firm of the American Renaissance in New York. Lindeberg’s work bears the lasting stamp of that tradition. In 1906 Lindeberg and his colleague, Lewis Colt Albro left the firm and opened their own New York architectural office. Aided by Albro’s social connections and later, those of Lindeberg’s second wife, they became architects to a new wealthy elite who were looking for symbols of leisure and success. Lindeberg’s style was known for its simplicity and warmth. Steeply pitched roofs, vernacular materials, and bare hints of older European architectural vocabulary differentiated Lindeberg’s homes from those of more traditional styles.

With the onset of World War I, Lindeberg joined the air corps. After the war, he resumed his practice in New York but found that more socially advantaged competitors including Charles Platt and John Russell Pope, had sewn up the premium commissions for social register homes along the eastern seaboard. It was then that Lindeberg discovered clients in the Midwest, South, and Gulf Coast regions. His imprimatur as a New York society architect with a strong record in country house work appealed to the new barons of the east Texas oil boom.

In Houston, before World War I, Stephen Cullinan (1860-1937), the founder of Texaco, envisioned a park-like enclave near Rice University and Hermann Park. He hired St. Louis landscape architect George E. Kessler to lay out the new Shadyside area. In 1919 he offered lots for sale to a select group of friends and associates. One of the friends, stockbroker Hugo V. Neuhaus (father of noted domestic architect Hugo V. Neuhaus Jr.), chose Harrie Lindeberg as his architect. The drawings for Neuhaus’ house constitute this collection.

Neuhaus also persuaded three of his friends, oilman William Stamps Farish, cotton exporter Kenneth E. Womack, and industrialist D.D. Peden to hire Harrie Lindeberg to design their homes.

Excerpted from Domestic architecture of H.T. Lindeberg by H. T. Lindeberg and originally published in 1940.

Extent

4 Linear Feet (85 drawings and one rendering)

0.068 Gigabytes (Nearline server MS0312aip_001) : 12 PDFs of full size black line prints

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract:

The Harrie Thomas Lindeberg Architectural Drawings collection includes eighty-five architectural sheets and one framed rendering by Lindeberg of the Hugo V. Neuhaus residence located in the Shadyside area of Houston, Texas.

Acquisition Information

Given to Rice University through Drexel Turner, Novermber 20, 1980.

Subjects

Record Groups

Related Names

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
Guide to the Harrie Thomas Lindeberg architectural drawings, 1920
Status
Completed
Author
Lee Pecht
Date
2008
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
English

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Woodson Research Center, Rice University, Houston, Texas Repository

https://library.rice.edu/woodson
Contact:
Fondren Library MS-44, Rice University
6100 Main St.
Houston Texas 77005 USA

Broaden your search:
Texas Archival Resources Online - statewide search of archival finding aids
ArchiveGrid - international search of archival finding aids
Scholarship.rice.edu - Rice University digital content

Harmful Content Statement
© 2023 Woodson Research Center
Fondren Library, Rice University
Physical Address: 6100 Main, Houston, Texas 77005-1827
Mailing Address: MS-44, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, Texas 77251-1892