Henry Fletcher Starbuck was born of Portuguese ancestry on March 1, 1850, in Nantucket, Massachusetts. His father, Henry J. Starbuck, came to America as a cabin boy on a whaling ship from the Azores and later became a whaling captain, skippering the ships Franklin and Daniel Webster.
The youngest of four children, Henry F. Starbuck completed his education in Boston and fulfilled his apprenticeship there under Harvard-educated architect Abel C. Martin (1831-1879). Starbuck formed his first partnership in Boston with George A. Moore as Moore & Starbuck Architects in 1873, followed by a partnership with Arthur H. Vinal as Starbuck & Vinal in 1877. From Boston, in that same year, Starbuck went to New Brunswick and established an office in New Brunswick, where he designed the Bank of New Brunswick and other fine buildings. Two years later he abandoned his eastern practice and moved to Chicago, where worked for several years initially specialized in engineering projects incorporating refrigeration and heavy machinery.
From Chicago Starbuck moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he entered into a partnership with Thomas Leslie Rose FAIA (1867-1935) as Starbuck & Rose Architects. Among his projects during this period was the Congregational Church in Baraboo, Wisconsin (1896). Upon dissolution of this partnership, Rose joined Charles Kirchoff and became an influential theater architect in the Midwest.
By 1886, Starbuck had returned to the practice of architecture with offices in Chicago's Ashland Block. Among his major commissions during this period was the five-hundred-seat Trinity Episcopal Church in Michigan City, Indiana--an exquisite rock-faced American Romanesque design of Bedford stone. This and his design for a Methodist-Episcopal Church in Maine appear to be precursors to other commissions that later solidified his reputation as a church architect in California.
Starbuck, meanwhile, moved west where he first established a practice in San Diego by 1894, where he earned a reputation as a specialist in church architecture. His earliest known California projects were an Episcopal church in El Cajon and a design proposal for a new high school in Fresno, although he did not receive the commission for the latter structure. Several of his early residential projects in San Diego received statewide press, including homes for Dr. S. E. Winn and Charles Low, followed by a design for the B. C. Lockwood Cottage during a short-lived partnership under the firm name of Starbuck & Logan.
By 1896, Starbuck had moved to Los Angeles, where he continued to gain prestige as a designer of churches. In 1899, he moved his office to Long Beach. Among his church projects during this period were the United Presbyterian Church and Methodist-Episcopal churches in Long Beach, a Baptist church in Los Angeles and the Knox Presbyterian church, also in Los Angeles.
In 1902, still practicing in Southern California, Starbuck designed a new structure in the Mission style for the Methodist-Episcopal Church in Fresno. He designed another
Methodist-Episcopal Church in Bakersfield in 1903.
Shortly thereafter Starbuck moved to Oakland but continued pursuing commissions in the Central Valley, including his proposal for a Fresno County Almshouse in 1906. While practicing in Oakland, Starbuck formed a brief partnership with William Wilde, with whom he appears to have begun his design for a Fresno Masonic Lodge building in 1910.
Starbuck's work in the East Bay received wide publicity in the chief regional journal of the day, Architect and Engineer of California, for which he served as a "contributor." Among mentions of his work in this periodical were several articles descriptive of his Mission-style Oakland home. Interior photographic views of the house were profiled in a 1908 issue that also featured Craftsman designs by Greene & Greene of Pasadena.
Starbuck also authored several articles in Architect and Engineer, including a piece in 1905 entitled "Architecture of Masonic and other Fraternal Buildings." Renderings of his Masonic Lodges in Palo Alto and Santa Rosa were reproduced in the October and November 1905 issues. A 1910 piece entitled "Designs for Country School Houses" was nicely illustrated with Starbuck sketches and plans.
At age 60, Starbuck moved to Fresno following the grisly murder of tenants living at his Cazadero Ranch near Santa Rosa. Starbuck's [second] wife, Margaret, a wealthy widow from Virginia whom he had married in Los Angeles in 1901, was widely known to be enamored with spiritualism. She operated the ranch which she "planned to use . . . as the foundation of a new cult" and develop as the site of a "temple . . . for all religions." Margaret was eventually implicated in the murder case for obstruction of justice, thrusting the Starbuck name into Bay Area newspaper headlines. Perhaps as the result of this negative press, followed by an equally well-publicized divorce, Starbuck gave up his flourishing practice in Oakland to seek "architectural exile" in Fresno, where he resettled to rebuild his career and life in 1910.
Once in Fresno, Starbuck took on Alfred W. Clark (1879-1914) as his partner. Together they aggressively launched a new architectural practice. Starbuck & Clark designed numerous projects, including a residence for Maud I. Pettus (1911), a charming shingle bungalow for Dr. George Hopkins (1911), a Reedley ranch house for A. A. Brigstocke (1911), two houses for R. A. Pickford (1911), an exotic Japanesque style bungalow for J. D. Stephens (1912), the J. H. Craycroft Residence (1912), the Paul Frohberg Residence (1912), a Fowler home for M. L. Harris (1912), the wonderfully whimsical Woodman of the World Building (1912), the Eagles Lodge (1912), the Riverside Country Club (1912), the Jacob Richter Building (1912), proposed plans for both the Sample Sanitarium (1912) and the Whittmore Theater (1913), and the F. H. Wilson residence (1913) in Dinuba. During the same period, but apparently working independently of Clark, Starbuck designed a new building for the First Congregational Church of Fresno in 1912. Still standing, this Craftsman-style church is noted for its characterful witch's hat tower.
By 1914, Starbuck found himself again working alone after Clark's untimely death at the age of thirty-five. Nonetheless, for another decade Starbuck continued to secure prestigious commissions, including the 1917 mansion for the Wylie M. Giffen Estate in southeast rural Fresno, now the administration building of the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary.
By the time he semi-retired to Los Angeles in 1926, at the age of 76, Henry Starbuck had dotted the Central Valley horizon with a long list of churches, including the Madera Presbyterian Church (1914), the Clovis Presbyterian Church (1914), the German Free Evangelical Lutheran Congregational Church (1914), the Fowler Baptist Church (1916), the Danish Lutheran Church (1917), the Powis Memorial Baptist Church (1920), a Methodist church in Ceres (1922), the Biola Lutheran Congregational Church (1922), the Bethel African Methodist Church (1923), the Armenian Evangelical Church in downtown Fresno (1923, as the contractor), and the Cumberland Church (1924). He also designed Wylie Giffen's Butler Avenue residence in 1917 and the U.S. Post Office building in 1923 for Selma, California. After establishing his Los Angeles office during the late 1920s, Starbuck designed a Methodist Church (1927) in Santa Paula and additions to a Nazarene Church (1930) in Compton.
Henry Fletcher Starbuck died on August 21, 1935, at age 85, at the Masonic Home in Decoto, [Alameda County] California. With modern architecture in vogue, few acknowledged the death of this senior member of traditional architecture's old guard. During the decade and a half that he worked in the Central Valley, he created an impressive body of work after already accomplishing what would have been for most architects a full and distinguished career. Many of his buildings in and around Fresno still stand, adding to a skyline admired with renewed curiosity because a national passion for espresso has reprised the Starbuck name.
Source: Historic Fresno, Henry F. Starbuck Biography: "Starbuck Means More Than Java in Fresno" by John Edward Powell. Architectural historian John Edward Powell, who completed this study while on sabbatical on the Central Coast in 1995, began his research on Henry F. Starbuck with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Architectural Foundation.
NOTE: On 08 Aug 1872 in Abington, Massachusetts, Henry F. Starbuck first entered into marriage at age 22, with Charlotte E. Noyes (b: 10 Aug 1850), daughter of Lewis E. and Lucy A. Noyes, also of Massachusetts. From this union a child, Henry Walker Starbuck, was born on 16 May 1874 in Hyde Park, Suffolk, Massachusetts.
In 1880, the Starbucks lived in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, in household of T. Davis Fitch.
As previously noted, Henry married a second time in 1901 to Margaret E. MaBee Lee, and from this union was born Mildred Starbuck Witmer (1905-08/13/1962).
Finally, on 23 (or 25) Dec 1916 in Fresno, CA, Henry entered into marriage with 45 year old Catherine Sophia Graham Johnson (02/27/1871-09/18/1940), who was more than twenty years his junior. There were no issue born from this union. Henry and Catherine lived in Fresno, CA in 1920; by 1926, they had relocated to San Antonio, Los Angeles, California. By 1935, Henry and Catherine were residents of the Masonic Home (for the Aged) in Decoto, Alameda County, CA, where they remained until their death.
Note: Link to second spouse Margaret E. MaBee Lee provided by Find-A-Grave contributor Connie.
Sources:
Massachusetts, Marriages, 1841-1915;
Massachusetts, Births and Christenings, 1639-1915;
United States Census, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1930;
California, County Marriages, 1850-1952;
Find-A-Grave contributor Connie.
The youngest of four children, Henry F. Starbuck completed his education in Boston and fulfilled his apprenticeship there under Harvard-educated architect Abel C. Martin (1831-1879). Starbuck formed his first partnership in Boston with George A. Moore as Moore & Starbuck Architects in 1873, followed by a partnership with Arthur H. Vinal as Starbuck & Vinal in 1877. From Boston, in that same year, Starbuck went to New Brunswick and established an office in New Brunswick, where he designed the Bank of New Brunswick and other fine buildings. Two years later he abandoned his eastern practice and moved to Chicago, where worked for several years initially specialized in engineering projects incorporating refrigeration and heavy machinery.
From Chicago Starbuck moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he entered into a partnership with Thomas Leslie Rose FAIA (1867-1935) as Starbuck & Rose Architects. Among his projects during this period was the Congregational Church in Baraboo, Wisconsin (1896). Upon dissolution of this partnership, Rose joined Charles Kirchoff and became an influential theater architect in the Midwest.
By 1886, Starbuck had returned to the practice of architecture with offices in Chicago's Ashland Block. Among his major commissions during this period was the five-hundred-seat Trinity Episcopal Church in Michigan City, Indiana--an exquisite rock-faced American Romanesque design of Bedford stone. This and his design for a Methodist-Episcopal Church in Maine appear to be precursors to other commissions that later solidified his reputation as a church architect in California.
Starbuck, meanwhile, moved west where he first established a practice in San Diego by 1894, where he earned a reputation as a specialist in church architecture. His earliest known California projects were an Episcopal church in El Cajon and a design proposal for a new high school in Fresno, although he did not receive the commission for the latter structure. Several of his early residential projects in San Diego received statewide press, including homes for Dr. S. E. Winn and Charles Low, followed by a design for the B. C. Lockwood Cottage during a short-lived partnership under the firm name of Starbuck & Logan.
By 1896, Starbuck had moved to Los Angeles, where he continued to gain prestige as a designer of churches. In 1899, he moved his office to Long Beach. Among his church projects during this period were the United Presbyterian Church and Methodist-Episcopal churches in Long Beach, a Baptist church in Los Angeles and the Knox Presbyterian church, also in Los Angeles.
In 1902, still practicing in Southern California, Starbuck designed a new structure in the Mission style for the Methodist-Episcopal Church in Fresno. He designed another
Methodist-Episcopal Church in Bakersfield in 1903.
Shortly thereafter Starbuck moved to Oakland but continued pursuing commissions in the Central Valley, including his proposal for a Fresno County Almshouse in 1906. While practicing in Oakland, Starbuck formed a brief partnership with William Wilde, with whom he appears to have begun his design for a Fresno Masonic Lodge building in 1910.
Starbuck's work in the East Bay received wide publicity in the chief regional journal of the day, Architect and Engineer of California, for which he served as a "contributor." Among mentions of his work in this periodical were several articles descriptive of his Mission-style Oakland home. Interior photographic views of the house were profiled in a 1908 issue that also featured Craftsman designs by Greene & Greene of Pasadena.
Starbuck also authored several articles in Architect and Engineer, including a piece in 1905 entitled "Architecture of Masonic and other Fraternal Buildings." Renderings of his Masonic Lodges in Palo Alto and Santa Rosa were reproduced in the October and November 1905 issues. A 1910 piece entitled "Designs for Country School Houses" was nicely illustrated with Starbuck sketches and plans.
At age 60, Starbuck moved to Fresno following the grisly murder of tenants living at his Cazadero Ranch near Santa Rosa. Starbuck's [second] wife, Margaret, a wealthy widow from Virginia whom he had married in Los Angeles in 1901, was widely known to be enamored with spiritualism. She operated the ranch which she "planned to use . . . as the foundation of a new cult" and develop as the site of a "temple . . . for all religions." Margaret was eventually implicated in the murder case for obstruction of justice, thrusting the Starbuck name into Bay Area newspaper headlines. Perhaps as the result of this negative press, followed by an equally well-publicized divorce, Starbuck gave up his flourishing practice in Oakland to seek "architectural exile" in Fresno, where he resettled to rebuild his career and life in 1910.
Once in Fresno, Starbuck took on Alfred W. Clark (1879-1914) as his partner. Together they aggressively launched a new architectural practice. Starbuck & Clark designed numerous projects, including a residence for Maud I. Pettus (1911), a charming shingle bungalow for Dr. George Hopkins (1911), a Reedley ranch house for A. A. Brigstocke (1911), two houses for R. A. Pickford (1911), an exotic Japanesque style bungalow for J. D. Stephens (1912), the J. H. Craycroft Residence (1912), the Paul Frohberg Residence (1912), a Fowler home for M. L. Harris (1912), the wonderfully whimsical Woodman of the World Building (1912), the Eagles Lodge (1912), the Riverside Country Club (1912), the Jacob Richter Building (1912), proposed plans for both the Sample Sanitarium (1912) and the Whittmore Theater (1913), and the F. H. Wilson residence (1913) in Dinuba. During the same period, but apparently working independently of Clark, Starbuck designed a new building for the First Congregational Church of Fresno in 1912. Still standing, this Craftsman-style church is noted for its characterful witch's hat tower.
By 1914, Starbuck found himself again working alone after Clark's untimely death at the age of thirty-five. Nonetheless, for another decade Starbuck continued to secure prestigious commissions, including the 1917 mansion for the Wylie M. Giffen Estate in southeast rural Fresno, now the administration building of the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary.
By the time he semi-retired to Los Angeles in 1926, at the age of 76, Henry Starbuck had dotted the Central Valley horizon with a long list of churches, including the Madera Presbyterian Church (1914), the Clovis Presbyterian Church (1914), the German Free Evangelical Lutheran Congregational Church (1914), the Fowler Baptist Church (1916), the Danish Lutheran Church (1917), the Powis Memorial Baptist Church (1920), a Methodist church in Ceres (1922), the Biola Lutheran Congregational Church (1922), the Bethel African Methodist Church (1923), the Armenian Evangelical Church in downtown Fresno (1923, as the contractor), and the Cumberland Church (1924). He also designed Wylie Giffen's Butler Avenue residence in 1917 and the U.S. Post Office building in 1923 for Selma, California. After establishing his Los Angeles office during the late 1920s, Starbuck designed a Methodist Church (1927) in Santa Paula and additions to a Nazarene Church (1930) in Compton.
Henry Fletcher Starbuck died on August 21, 1935, at age 85, at the Masonic Home in Decoto, [Alameda County] California. With modern architecture in vogue, few acknowledged the death of this senior member of traditional architecture's old guard. During the decade and a half that he worked in the Central Valley, he created an impressive body of work after already accomplishing what would have been for most architects a full and distinguished career. Many of his buildings in and around Fresno still stand, adding to a skyline admired with renewed curiosity because a national passion for espresso has reprised the Starbuck name.
Source: Historic Fresno, Henry F. Starbuck Biography: "Starbuck Means More Than Java in Fresno" by John Edward Powell. Architectural historian John Edward Powell, who completed this study while on sabbatical on the Central Coast in 1995, began his research on Henry F. Starbuck with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Architectural Foundation.
NOTE: On 08 Aug 1872 in Abington, Massachusetts, Henry F. Starbuck first entered into marriage at age 22, with Charlotte E. Noyes (b: 10 Aug 1850), daughter of Lewis E. and Lucy A. Noyes, also of Massachusetts. From this union a child, Henry Walker Starbuck, was born on 16 May 1874 in Hyde Park, Suffolk, Massachusetts.
In 1880, the Starbucks lived in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, in household of T. Davis Fitch.
As previously noted, Henry married a second time in 1901 to Margaret E. MaBee Lee, and from this union was born Mildred Starbuck Witmer (1905-08/13/1962).
Finally, on 23 (or 25) Dec 1916 in Fresno, CA, Henry entered into marriage with 45 year old Catherine Sophia Graham Johnson (02/27/1871-09/18/1940), who was more than twenty years his junior. There were no issue born from this union. Henry and Catherine lived in Fresno, CA in 1920; by 1926, they had relocated to San Antonio, Los Angeles, California. By 1935, Henry and Catherine were residents of the Masonic Home (for the Aged) in Decoto, Alameda County, CA, where they remained until their death.
Note: Link to second spouse Margaret E. MaBee Lee provided by Find-A-Grave contributor Connie.
Sources:
Massachusetts, Marriages, 1841-1915;
Massachusetts, Births and Christenings, 1639-1915;
United States Census, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1930;
California, County Marriages, 1850-1952;
Find-A-Grave contributor Connie.
Henry Fletcher Starbuck was born of Portuguese ancestry on March 1, 1850, in Nantucket, Massachusetts. His father, Henry J. Starbuck, came to America as a cabin boy on a whaling ship from the Azores and later became a whaling captain, skippering the ships Franklin and Daniel Webster.
The youngest of four children, Henry F. Starbuck completed his education in Boston and fulfilled his apprenticeship there under Harvard-educated architect Abel C. Martin (1831-1879). Starbuck formed his first partnership in Boston with George A. Moore as Moore & Starbuck Architects in 1873, followed by a partnership with Arthur H. Vinal as Starbuck & Vinal in 1877. From Boston, in that same year, Starbuck went to New Brunswick and established an office in New Brunswick, where he designed the Bank of New Brunswick and other fine buildings. Two years later he abandoned his eastern practice and moved to Chicago, where worked for several years initially specialized in engineering projects incorporating refrigeration and heavy machinery.
From Chicago Starbuck moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he entered into a partnership with Thomas Leslie Rose FAIA (1867-1935) as Starbuck & Rose Architects. Among his projects during this period was the Congregational Church in Baraboo, Wisconsin (1896). Upon dissolution of this partnership, Rose joined Charles Kirchoff and became an influential theater architect in the Midwest.
By 1886, Starbuck had returned to the practice of architecture with offices in Chicago's Ashland Block. Among his major commissions during this period was the five-hundred-seat Trinity Episcopal Church in Michigan City, Indiana--an exquisite rock-faced American Romanesque design of Bedford stone. This and his design for a Methodist-Episcopal Church in Maine appear to be precursors to other commissions that later solidified his reputation as a church architect in California.
Starbuck, meanwhile, moved west where he first established a practice in San Diego by 1894, where he earned a reputation as a specialist in church architecture. His earliest known California projects were an Episcopal church in El Cajon and a design proposal for a new high school in Fresno, although he did not receive the commission for the latter structure. Several of his early residential projects in San Diego received statewide press, including homes for Dr. S. E. Winn and Charles Low, followed by a design for the B. C. Lockwood Cottage during a short-lived partnership under the firm name of Starbuck & Logan.
By 1896, Starbuck had moved to Los Angeles, where he continued to gain prestige as a designer of churches. In 1899, he moved his office to Long Beach. Among his church projects during this period were the United Presbyterian Church and Methodist-Episcopal churches in Long Beach, a Baptist church in Los Angeles and the Knox Presbyterian church, also in Los Angeles.
In 1902, still practicing in Southern California, Starbuck designed a new structure in the Mission style for the Methodist-Episcopal Church in Fresno. He designed another
Methodist-Episcopal Church in Bakersfield in 1903.
Shortly thereafter Starbuck moved to Oakland but continued pursuing commissions in the Central Valley, including his proposal for a Fresno County Almshouse in 1906. While practicing in Oakland, Starbuck formed a brief partnership with William Wilde, with whom he appears to have begun his design for a Fresno Masonic Lodge building in 1910.
Starbuck's work in the East Bay received wide publicity in the chief regional journal of the day, Architect and Engineer of California, for which he served as a "contributor." Among mentions of his work in this periodical were several articles descriptive of his Mission-style Oakland home. Interior photographic views of the house were profiled in a 1908 issue that also featured Craftsman designs by Greene & Greene of Pasadena.
Starbuck also authored several articles in Architect and Engineer, including a piece in 1905 entitled "Architecture of Masonic and other Fraternal Buildings." Renderings of his Masonic Lodges in Palo Alto and Santa Rosa were reproduced in the October and November 1905 issues. A 1910 piece entitled "Designs for Country School Houses" was nicely illustrated with Starbuck sketches and plans.
At age 60, Starbuck moved to Fresno following the grisly murder of tenants living at his Cazadero Ranch near Santa Rosa. Starbuck's [second] wife, Margaret, a wealthy widow from Virginia whom he had married in Los Angeles in 1901, was widely known to be enamored with spiritualism. She operated the ranch which she "planned to use . . . as the foundation of a new cult" and develop as the site of a "temple . . . for all religions." Margaret was eventually implicated in the murder case for obstruction of justice, thrusting the Starbuck name into Bay Area newspaper headlines. Perhaps as the result of this negative press, followed by an equally well-publicized divorce, Starbuck gave up his flourishing practice in Oakland to seek "architectural exile" in Fresno, where he resettled to rebuild his career and life in 1910.
Once in Fresno, Starbuck took on Alfred W. Clark (1879-1914) as his partner. Together they aggressively launched a new architectural practice. Starbuck & Clark designed numerous projects, including a residence for Maud I. Pettus (1911), a charming shingle bungalow for Dr. George Hopkins (1911), a Reedley ranch house for A. A. Brigstocke (1911), two houses for R. A. Pickford (1911), an exotic Japanesque style bungalow for J. D. Stephens (1912), the J. H. Craycroft Residence (1912), the Paul Frohberg Residence (1912), a Fowler home for M. L. Harris (1912), the wonderfully whimsical Woodman of the World Building (1912), the Eagles Lodge (1912), the Riverside Country Club (1912), the Jacob Richter Building (1912), proposed plans for both the Sample Sanitarium (1912) and the Whittmore Theater (1913), and the F. H. Wilson residence (1913) in Dinuba. During the same period, but apparently working independently of Clark, Starbuck designed a new building for the First Congregational Church of Fresno in 1912. Still standing, this Craftsman-style church is noted for its characterful witch's hat tower.
By 1914, Starbuck found himself again working alone after Clark's untimely death at the age of thirty-five. Nonetheless, for another decade Starbuck continued to secure prestigious commissions, including the 1917 mansion for the Wylie M. Giffen Estate in southeast rural Fresno, now the administration building of the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary.
By the time he semi-retired to Los Angeles in 1926, at the age of 76, Henry Starbuck had dotted the Central Valley horizon with a long list of churches, including the Madera Presbyterian Church (1914), the Clovis Presbyterian Church (1914), the German Free Evangelical Lutheran Congregational Church (1914), the Fowler Baptist Church (1916), the Danish Lutheran Church (1917), the Powis Memorial Baptist Church (1920), a Methodist church in Ceres (1922), the Biola Lutheran Congregational Church (1922), the Bethel African Methodist Church (1923), the Armenian Evangelical Church in downtown Fresno (1923, as the contractor), and the Cumberland Church (1924). He also designed Wylie Giffen's Butler Avenue residence in 1917 and the U.S. Post Office building in 1923 for Selma, California. After establishing his Los Angeles office during the late 1920s, Starbuck designed a Methodist Church (1927) in Santa Paula and additions to a Nazarene Church (1930) in Compton.
Henry Fletcher Starbuck died on August 21, 1935, at age 85, at the Masonic Home in Decoto, [Alameda County] California. With modern architecture in vogue, few acknowledged the death of this senior member of traditional architecture's old guard. During the decade and a half that he worked in the Central Valley, he created an impressive body of work after already accomplishing what would have been for most architects a full and distinguished career. Many of his buildings in and around Fresno still stand, adding to a skyline admired with renewed curiosity because a national passion for espresso has reprised the Starbuck name.
Source: Historic Fresno, Henry F. Starbuck Biography: "Starbuck Means More Than Java in Fresno" by John Edward Powell. Architectural historian John Edward Powell, who completed this study while on sabbatical on the Central Coast in 1995, began his research on Henry F. Starbuck with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Architectural Foundation.
NOTE: On 08 Aug 1872 in Abington, Massachusetts, Henry F. Starbuck first entered into marriage at age 22, with Charlotte E. Noyes (b: 10 Aug 1850), daughter of Lewis E. and Lucy A. Noyes, also of Massachusetts. From this union a child, Henry Walker Starbuck, was born on 16 May 1874 in Hyde Park, Suffolk, Massachusetts.
In 1880, the Starbucks lived in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, in household of T. Davis Fitch.
As previously noted, Henry married a second time in 1901 to Margaret E. MaBee Lee, and from this union was born Mildred Starbuck Witmer (1905-08/13/1962).
Finally, on 23 (or 25) Dec 1916 in Fresno, CA, Henry entered into marriage with 45 year old Catherine Sophia Graham Johnson (02/27/1871-09/18/1940), who was more than twenty years his junior. There were no issue born from this union. Henry and Catherine lived in Fresno, CA in 1920; by 1926, they had relocated to San Antonio, Los Angeles, California. By 1935, Henry and Catherine were residents of the Masonic Home (for the Aged) in Decoto, Alameda County, CA, where they remained until their death.
Note: Link to second spouse Margaret E. MaBee Lee provided by Find-A-Grave contributor Connie.
Sources:
Massachusetts, Marriages, 1841-1915;
Massachusetts, Births and Christenings, 1639-1915;
United States Census, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1930;
California, County Marriages, 1850-1952;
Find-A-Grave contributor Connie.
The youngest of four children, Henry F. Starbuck completed his education in Boston and fulfilled his apprenticeship there under Harvard-educated architect Abel C. Martin (1831-1879). Starbuck formed his first partnership in Boston with George A. Moore as Moore & Starbuck Architects in 1873, followed by a partnership with Arthur H. Vinal as Starbuck & Vinal in 1877. From Boston, in that same year, Starbuck went to New Brunswick and established an office in New Brunswick, where he designed the Bank of New Brunswick and other fine buildings. Two years later he abandoned his eastern practice and moved to Chicago, where worked for several years initially specialized in engineering projects incorporating refrigeration and heavy machinery.
From Chicago Starbuck moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he entered into a partnership with Thomas Leslie Rose FAIA (1867-1935) as Starbuck & Rose Architects. Among his projects during this period was the Congregational Church in Baraboo, Wisconsin (1896). Upon dissolution of this partnership, Rose joined Charles Kirchoff and became an influential theater architect in the Midwest.
By 1886, Starbuck had returned to the practice of architecture with offices in Chicago's Ashland Block. Among his major commissions during this period was the five-hundred-seat Trinity Episcopal Church in Michigan City, Indiana--an exquisite rock-faced American Romanesque design of Bedford stone. This and his design for a Methodist-Episcopal Church in Maine appear to be precursors to other commissions that later solidified his reputation as a church architect in California.
Starbuck, meanwhile, moved west where he first established a practice in San Diego by 1894, where he earned a reputation as a specialist in church architecture. His earliest known California projects were an Episcopal church in El Cajon and a design proposal for a new high school in Fresno, although he did not receive the commission for the latter structure. Several of his early residential projects in San Diego received statewide press, including homes for Dr. S. E. Winn and Charles Low, followed by a design for the B. C. Lockwood Cottage during a short-lived partnership under the firm name of Starbuck & Logan.
By 1896, Starbuck had moved to Los Angeles, where he continued to gain prestige as a designer of churches. In 1899, he moved his office to Long Beach. Among his church projects during this period were the United Presbyterian Church and Methodist-Episcopal churches in Long Beach, a Baptist church in Los Angeles and the Knox Presbyterian church, also in Los Angeles.
In 1902, still practicing in Southern California, Starbuck designed a new structure in the Mission style for the Methodist-Episcopal Church in Fresno. He designed another
Methodist-Episcopal Church in Bakersfield in 1903.
Shortly thereafter Starbuck moved to Oakland but continued pursuing commissions in the Central Valley, including his proposal for a Fresno County Almshouse in 1906. While practicing in Oakland, Starbuck formed a brief partnership with William Wilde, with whom he appears to have begun his design for a Fresno Masonic Lodge building in 1910.
Starbuck's work in the East Bay received wide publicity in the chief regional journal of the day, Architect and Engineer of California, for which he served as a "contributor." Among mentions of his work in this periodical were several articles descriptive of his Mission-style Oakland home. Interior photographic views of the house were profiled in a 1908 issue that also featured Craftsman designs by Greene & Greene of Pasadena.
Starbuck also authored several articles in Architect and Engineer, including a piece in 1905 entitled "Architecture of Masonic and other Fraternal Buildings." Renderings of his Masonic Lodges in Palo Alto and Santa Rosa were reproduced in the October and November 1905 issues. A 1910 piece entitled "Designs for Country School Houses" was nicely illustrated with Starbuck sketches and plans.
At age 60, Starbuck moved to Fresno following the grisly murder of tenants living at his Cazadero Ranch near Santa Rosa. Starbuck's [second] wife, Margaret, a wealthy widow from Virginia whom he had married in Los Angeles in 1901, was widely known to be enamored with spiritualism. She operated the ranch which she "planned to use . . . as the foundation of a new cult" and develop as the site of a "temple . . . for all religions." Margaret was eventually implicated in the murder case for obstruction of justice, thrusting the Starbuck name into Bay Area newspaper headlines. Perhaps as the result of this negative press, followed by an equally well-publicized divorce, Starbuck gave up his flourishing practice in Oakland to seek "architectural exile" in Fresno, where he resettled to rebuild his career and life in 1910.
Once in Fresno, Starbuck took on Alfred W. Clark (1879-1914) as his partner. Together they aggressively launched a new architectural practice. Starbuck & Clark designed numerous projects, including a residence for Maud I. Pettus (1911), a charming shingle bungalow for Dr. George Hopkins (1911), a Reedley ranch house for A. A. Brigstocke (1911), two houses for R. A. Pickford (1911), an exotic Japanesque style bungalow for J. D. Stephens (1912), the J. H. Craycroft Residence (1912), the Paul Frohberg Residence (1912), a Fowler home for M. L. Harris (1912), the wonderfully whimsical Woodman of the World Building (1912), the Eagles Lodge (1912), the Riverside Country Club (1912), the Jacob Richter Building (1912), proposed plans for both the Sample Sanitarium (1912) and the Whittmore Theater (1913), and the F. H. Wilson residence (1913) in Dinuba. During the same period, but apparently working independently of Clark, Starbuck designed a new building for the First Congregational Church of Fresno in 1912. Still standing, this Craftsman-style church is noted for its characterful witch's hat tower.
By 1914, Starbuck found himself again working alone after Clark's untimely death at the age of thirty-five. Nonetheless, for another decade Starbuck continued to secure prestigious commissions, including the 1917 mansion for the Wylie M. Giffen Estate in southeast rural Fresno, now the administration building of the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary.
By the time he semi-retired to Los Angeles in 1926, at the age of 76, Henry Starbuck had dotted the Central Valley horizon with a long list of churches, including the Madera Presbyterian Church (1914), the Clovis Presbyterian Church (1914), the German Free Evangelical Lutheran Congregational Church (1914), the Fowler Baptist Church (1916), the Danish Lutheran Church (1917), the Powis Memorial Baptist Church (1920), a Methodist church in Ceres (1922), the Biola Lutheran Congregational Church (1922), the Bethel African Methodist Church (1923), the Armenian Evangelical Church in downtown Fresno (1923, as the contractor), and the Cumberland Church (1924). He also designed Wylie Giffen's Butler Avenue residence in 1917 and the U.S. Post Office building in 1923 for Selma, California. After establishing his Los Angeles office during the late 1920s, Starbuck designed a Methodist Church (1927) in Santa Paula and additions to a Nazarene Church (1930) in Compton.
Henry Fletcher Starbuck died on August 21, 1935, at age 85, at the Masonic Home in Decoto, [Alameda County] California. With modern architecture in vogue, few acknowledged the death of this senior member of traditional architecture's old guard. During the decade and a half that he worked in the Central Valley, he created an impressive body of work after already accomplishing what would have been for most architects a full and distinguished career. Many of his buildings in and around Fresno still stand, adding to a skyline admired with renewed curiosity because a national passion for espresso has reprised the Starbuck name.
Source: Historic Fresno, Henry F. Starbuck Biography: "Starbuck Means More Than Java in Fresno" by John Edward Powell. Architectural historian John Edward Powell, who completed this study while on sabbatical on the Central Coast in 1995, began his research on Henry F. Starbuck with grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Architectural Foundation.
NOTE: On 08 Aug 1872 in Abington, Massachusetts, Henry F. Starbuck first entered into marriage at age 22, with Charlotte E. Noyes (b: 10 Aug 1850), daughter of Lewis E. and Lucy A. Noyes, also of Massachusetts. From this union a child, Henry Walker Starbuck, was born on 16 May 1874 in Hyde Park, Suffolk, Massachusetts.
In 1880, the Starbucks lived in Chicago, Cook, Illinois, in household of T. Davis Fitch.
As previously noted, Henry married a second time in 1901 to Margaret E. MaBee Lee, and from this union was born Mildred Starbuck Witmer (1905-08/13/1962).
Finally, on 23 (or 25) Dec 1916 in Fresno, CA, Henry entered into marriage with 45 year old Catherine Sophia Graham Johnson (02/27/1871-09/18/1940), who was more than twenty years his junior. There were no issue born from this union. Henry and Catherine lived in Fresno, CA in 1920; by 1926, they had relocated to San Antonio, Los Angeles, California. By 1935, Henry and Catherine were residents of the Masonic Home (for the Aged) in Decoto, Alameda County, CA, where they remained until their death.
Note: Link to second spouse Margaret E. MaBee Lee provided by Find-A-Grave contributor Connie.
Sources:
Massachusetts, Marriages, 1841-1915;
Massachusetts, Births and Christenings, 1639-1915;
United States Census, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1930;
California, County Marriages, 1850-1952;
Find-A-Grave contributor Connie.
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