Stanhope S. Johnson (1882-1973) was a prolific Virginia architect based in Lynchburg who designed at least two notable buildings in North Carolina—the Washington Duke Hotel in Durham and the Carolina Theatre and Hotel in Winston-Salem, large and luxuriously detailed tall buildings that instantly became landmarks of their cities. He is believed to have planned other North Carolina buildings, which remain to be identified.

A native of Lynchburg, at age seventeen Johnson began working in the architectural office of Edward G. Frye. By 1909 he became a partner in the architectural firm of McLaughlin, Pettit and Johnson. Charles Pettit left the firm by 1913, and by 1917 McLaughlin and Johnson had formed independent practices. From 1925 to 1932, Johnson associated with architect Ray O. Brannan as Johnson and Brannan. Addison Staples was a draftsman and designer in Johnston’s office from 1919 to 1938. Johnson, who continued his practice into the 1960s, was considered the “dean” of Lynchburg’s architects. His work encompassed many neoclassical and Georgian Revival buildings but also modernist designs in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Stanhope S. Johnson and R. O. Brannan Collection (ca. 1900-1925) at Special Collections at Belk Library at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, comprises a small group of drawings and photographs, including a drawing and photograph of the Carolina Hotel and Theatre Building in Winston-Salem and an undated drawing for a city hall in Durham. After Johnson’s death most of his drawings were given to the Jones Memorial Library in Lynchburg.

• S. Allen Chambers, Lynchburg: An Architectural History (1981).
• Heather Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage (2015).
• Joel A. Kostyu and Frank A. Kostyu, Durham: A Pictorial History (1978).
• “Washington Duke Hotel/Jack Tar Hotel,” Open Durham, http://opendurham.org/buildings/washington-duke-hotel-jack-tar-hotel.
• John E. Wells and Robert E. Dalton, The Virginia Architects, 1835-1955: A Biographical Dictionary (1997).