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Latrobe made designs for John Tayloe's house in ca. 1798, but they were not accepted. Thornton worked on designs for Tayloe during ca. 1797-99. The evolution of his plan studies suggests that the program was not well established when he began work. Given a triangular site, he was faced with a design problem for which he could not expect to find appropriate precedents. He made three significant initial decisions, two of which he pursued in his final scheme. First, he arranged the lateral walls of his plan to run parallel to the two bounding streets. Second, he hinged his lateral spaces, a basilican-form room that may have been for dining, and a much smaller rectangular room, which could have been an office, kitchen office, or a bed chamber with the family stair adjacent to it, about a semi-circular central entry hall with a lozenge-shaped vestibule beyond. Third, he made his major space a dominant, rear garden room. Thornton included no service stair. He placed all bed chambers on the floors above. In this first plan he attached columns to the entry-hall facade in a configuration that could have yielded an elevation similar to the Capitol sketch. In subsequent iterations, he eliminated the orders, producing a composition with the walls of the plan extruded uniformly to the building's full height.

In his second plan he completed the circle of the vestibule and regularized the lateral rooms. Having displaced the family stair in the process, he relocated it within a second circular space behind the entry hall, leaving room only for oddly shaped and equally oddly oriented minor spaces in place of the large garden room.

In his final plan (Figure 16) he further simplified geometries. Leaving the lateral, symmetrical rooms and circular entry hall intact, he created a triangular space to the rear, subdivided into a conventional stair with smaller triangles of residual space to each side, one housing a service stair and the other a pantry.

Thornton also designed stables, which were constructed at the rear of his site and which were, ironically, destroyed by the American Institute of Architects to make way for their headquarters building in 1973. Although slightly awkward, their massing and detailing were more assertive than that of the Octagon. Thornton made use of two different sizes of semi-circular arches united by a single belt course forming their common impost. He made space for coaches in the two central bays with stalls to either side and with servants' quarters above.

Such practical buildings were a specialty of New York City architect John McComb, Jr. with whom Latrobe had several connections. In 1802, he competed unsuccessfully against McComb and Joseph Mangin in the New York City Hall competition. In 1808, at a time when he was considering moving to New York, Latrobe made plans for the development of the New York Navy Yard and, transmitting drawings to Colonel Jonathan Williams, he wrote: "I hope Mr. McComb will not be offended at the alterations. If I come to New York I may have occasion and I shall certainly have the inclination to serve him."34 McComb was then laying foundations for a lodge at the Navy Yard,35 but Latrobe's correspondence does not make clear whether he and McComb ever met.

McComb continued his practice, begun in 1790, until 1826, becoming perhaps the most productive architect of his day. While very little remains of his executed work, a massive collection of his drawings is housed in the New York Historical Society.

McComb, like Hoban, fashioned himself as more of a builder than an architect, such that in 1826 he could comment that he had not drawn in a "number of years."36 While Latrobe's sarcastic description of him as a "New York City bricklayer"37 contained an element of truth, McComb's reputation as a technician made him a candidate to replace Latrobe at the Capitol before Bulfinch's arrival.38 Catering to wealthy merchant and lawyer clients, most of them conservative Federalists, McComb seldom if ever chose to be innovative. All of his townhouses and most of his country residences exhibit a sameness enlivened only by his early and continued use of Adamesque features. His formula proved successful financially as he left better than $70,000 to his heirs upon his death in 1853.39

McComb produced an extraordinary variety of commissions: commercial, academic, and governmental buildings; churches; banks; even lighthouses. He also made many residential designs, the majority of which were urban townhouses. In 1794 he designed a house for Rufus King, a New York state senator and minister to Great Britain. It is known only through an elevation drawing and possesses no features that might set it apart from its speculatively built neighbors.

In 1797, McComb designed Dominick Lynch's country house for Clauson's Point in Westchester County. Its elevation looks back to Anglo-Palladian models. Plans and an endwall elevation remain for his John B. Coles House (1797). The elevation reveals marginal drafting skill. The plan follows orthodox precedents with no sign of innovation. McComb also left behind a plan and elevation for a ca. 1798-1800 country-house scheme (Figures 17-18) which is more adventurous than any of the previous projects. Like Bulfinch's Swan House, it includes double entries and a transverse hall and an elliptical (Bulfinch's was circular.) garden room with an enveloping porch. Judging from this project, McComb had a problem with both scale and proportion, making the stairs and porches much too large for the main block. Furthermore, he seems to have miscalculated completely the rise of the interior stair, as it could not have contained sufficient headroom. NEXT PAGE>>

FIGURE 16: Tayloe House, Washington, D.C., First-floor plan (ca. 1797-99) (Fazio). While Benjamin Latrobe made a proposal for the John Tayloe House, William Thornton received the commission. Given a triangular site, Thornton was faced with a design problem for which he could not expect to find appropriate precedents. In this case, he was up to the challenge, fitting multiple room shapes together without resorting to his “mandoline” and “harp” outlines that Latrobe ridiculed at the Capitol. After working through at least two prior schemes, Thornton settled on this one with lateral, symmetrically disposed principal rooms splayed astride a circular entry vestibule. Into the triangular spaces to the rear, he inserted a conventional stair, leaving smaller triangles of residual space to each side, one housing a service stair and the other a pantry. back

FIGURE 17: John McComb's design for a country house, First-floor plan (ca. 1798-1800) (Fazio). Latrobe once considered moving to New York, where he would have competed directly with John McComb. Like Hoban, McComb fashioned himself as more of a builder than an architect and Latrobe eventually dismissed him as a “New York City bricklayer.” McComb was seldom innovative in his residential designs, which typically exhibit a sameness enlivened only by his early and continued use of Adamesque features. This country house scheme is an exception. Like Bulfinch’s Swan House, it includes double entries and a transverse hall and an elliptical (Bulfinch’s was circular) garden room with an enveloping porch. back

FIGURE 18: McComb's design for a country house. Front elevation. (Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA) McComb's composition is unusual for its dual lateral entrances, comparable to Bulfinch's Swan House (Fig. 5). Perhaps McComb was uncomfortable with a more "modern" three-bay facade and so sought to make it less radical by adding the flanking entry bays to produce a quasi-five-bay scheme.

34 BHL to Williams, 22 August 1800. back

35 BHL to Williams, 19 August 1808. back

36 Stillman, "McComb," 5. back

37 BHL to CIL, 4 November 1804 (C4). back

38 Stillman, "McComb," 6 and 119, n. 20. back

39 Stillman, "McComb," 10. back