William Lawrence Bottomley (February 24, 1883-February 1, 1951) was a Beaux-Arts trained master of the period revival styles popular in the early to mid-20^thcentury. With offices in New York, he took many commissions in that city and its environs, but his skill in the Georgian Revival and other Beaux-Arts influenced modes also won him a strong clientele in the American South as well, especially in Virginia. His best known work in North Carolina is his Palladian inspired Raleigh residence, Tatton Hall.

This overview of Bottomley’s career is drawn primarily from Susan Hume Frazier, The Architecture of William Lawrence Bottomley__, and Davyd Foard Hood, “William Lawrence Bottomley” in the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.

William Lawrence Bottomley was born in New York City to John and Susan Amelia Steers Bottomley. Educated at the Horace Mann School, he received the B. A. degree in architecture from Columbia University in 1906 before heading for Europe for further travel and study: in 1907 he studied at the American Academy in Rome, having received the McKim Fellowship in Architecture; in 1908 he traveled extensively in Europe; and on October 1, 1908 he entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

In 1909 Bottomley returned to the United States to begin his practice as an architect. In that year he wed sculptor and writer Harriet Townsend. They had three daughters, Harriet, Susan, and Virginia. Possibly through his wife’s interest in gardening, Bottomley formed a long association with landscape architect Charles Gillette. With his pedigree and personality as well as his architectural skills appealing to elite clients, he soon established himself as a “society architect.” He worked easily in a variety of revivalist styles including Mediterranean, Gothic Revival, and especially English and colonial American styles. As architectural historian Calder Loth notes the foreword to Frazier’s study, Bottomley’s works are “distinctively his own. Much of their effectiveness derives from his ability to synthesize features of historic buildings into fresh new designs.” Known as a perfectionist, he insisted on first quality materials and workmanship for every detail. During the Great Depression, especially, his clients could choose from among the best craftsmen and manufacturers.

Like other architects of his era, Bottomley gained knowledge of authentic period architecture by studying and recording historic buildings; as a member of the Depression-era Architects’ Emergency Committee, headquartered in New York, he contributed to and served as editor for Great Georgian Houses of America (1933). He was also involved in the restoration of early Virginia houses. In 1944 he was honored as a fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA).

Bottomley is best known for single-family homes and apartment buildings in the New York area, the mid-Atlantic region, and in Virginia. In Manhattan a premier project was the River House apartment building (1930-1931), a luxurious skyscraper at 535 E. 52nd Street. Many of his single-family residences were located on extensive, landscaped grounds as country seats or suburban estates. His work in Virginia comprised about 40 percent of his oeuvre and included both country houses and residences in Richmond, especially on Monument Avenue. The collection of his drawings at the Avery Library at Columbia includes thirty-nine commissions from 1913 to 1946 for buildings in New York, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. No North Carolina buildings are listed in that collection.

Bottomley’s four known North Carolina projects well represent his work in style and type. One of his first projects in North Carolina was for Emmanuel Episcopal Church II, located in Warrenton, a small town near the Virginia border. The congregation asked Bottomley in 1926 to design a new brick church, but soon realized that their limited budget could support only a “restoration” of the existing 19^th century frame church. He transformed the old church with brick veneer in Flemish bond and buttresses. About the same time, Bottomley planned the Reynolds-Gourmajenko House in Charlotte, in a Tuscan Revival style for Blanche (Alice B.) Morgan Reynolds and her husband, William A. Reynolds, a cotton oil manufacturer. Blanche, who had grown up in Richmond, was known for her interest in the arts and as a “world traveler and independent spirit.”

Bottomley’s other known works in North Carolina, both built during the Great Depression, illustrate his facility with the Georgian Revival style. Not far from Warrenton, in the small town of Weldon near the Virginia border, he designed the luxurious Georgian Revival style DeLeon F. and Dora Green House (1934) for retired tobacco executive Green and his wife, Dora. When Norman and Mishew Rogers Edgerton decided to build their residence, Tatton Hall, on the northwestern side of Raleigh during the Depression, they considered and rejected other house designs before learning of Bottomley from their landscape architect, Charles Gillette. As Norman Edgerton commented in an interview on July 21, 1981, “We just got him [Bottomley] in the Depression, that’s how we got him to give us so much time.” Edgerton remembered that Bottomley wore a monocle and had a formal manner. It was Mrs. Edgerton, said her husband, who mainly handled the project with Bottomley, and she “just naturally knew her ideas.” The expansive brick house takes a five-part Palladian form with a pedimented central section and rich classical detail; the garden fa&231;ade is curved to accommodate a terrace. Tatton Hall is Bottomley’s last known work in North Carolina and is regarded as one of the finest Georgian Revival residences in the state.

• Susan Hume Frazer, The Architecture of William Lawrence Bottomley (2007).
• Davyd Foard Hood, “William Lawrence Bottomley,” in Charles Reagan Wilson, William Ferris and Ann J. Adadie, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989).