Francis P. Sullivan Papers

Native Washingtonian Francis P. Sullivan practiced architecture in the city for more than 50 years. Over the course of his career, he worked closely with one of D.C.’s best-known architects, Nathan C. Wyeth, whom he joined in a partnership from 1924-1934. The firm of Wyeth & Sullivan designed numerous mansions for wealthy Washingtonians, mainly in Northwest Washington. In addition, the firm and Sullivan alone worked on hospitals, office buildings, and smaller dwellings.

Born in 1885 in Washington, D.C., Francis Paul Sullivan was the fourth child of Thomas J. and Mary Collier Sullivan. Thomas J. Sullivan (1845-1908) was a lawyer and accountant who served as the Assistant Director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing for 25 years and as Director for the last two years of his life. Francis P. Sullivan attended Georgetown Preparatory School and then entered Georgetown University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1904. Between 1904 and 1908, Sullivan studied first engineering and then architecture at George Washington University.

After completing college and while he attended graduate school, Sullivan worked as a draftsman and apprentice in the architecture firm of Wyeth and Cresson. Soon after completing his graduate studies, he was promoted to designer and principal assistant in the now independent office of Nathan C. Wyeth. He served as principal assistant to Wyeth in the design of the Swedish Legation (location unknown), the Franklin and Emily MacVeagh House (later the Mexican Embassy at 2827 16th Street NW, 1910), Emergency Hospital & Dispensary (1711 New York Avenue NW, 1914), and the Loudoun County Hospital in Virginia. While working for Wyeth, Sullivan completed independent work, most of which was designing buildings for family members, including a two-story, brick row house in the Kalorama neighborhood for his brother, Thomas V. Sullivan, at 1851 Vernon Street NW (1912).

During World War I, Sullivan joined the U.S. Army and became a Captain in the Ordnance Branch of the War Department. After the war ended in 1918, he remained employed by the War Department where he was in charge of auditing war contracts. He left the War Department in 1922 to become Comptroller for the U.S. Post Office Department.

In 1924, Francis Sullivan returned to architecture and formed a partnership with Nathan C. Wyeth. Wyeth & Sullivan (1924-1934) executed many important residential and public commissions. Most of the residences were completed for wealthy clients and were executed in popular academic eclectic styles, such as Neo-Classical and Tudor or French RenaissanceRevival. Among the firm’s most important residential works is the large, Classical-Revival-style, brick mansion at 2340 Wyoming Avenue NW. Built in 1926 for Supreme Court Justice Harlan F. Stone, since 1946 the former dwelling has housed the Embassy of Afghanistan. Designs for several more residences for prominent Washingtonians followed, including a Tudor Revival house for Clarence A. Aspinwall executed in 1928 (2340 Kalorama Road NW); a 38-room mansion for Duncan Phillips, the founder of the Phillips Collection and influential modern art collector (near Foxhall Road across from GWU Mt. Vernon Campus; designed in 1928; completed 1930; demolished 1988); and a grand, Georgian Revival-style residence for Assistant Director of the Office of Naval Communications and later Rear Admiral Paul Henry Bastedo and his wife Helen 3055 Whitehaven Street NW (1929).

During the same period, Wyeth & Sullivan executed some prominent non-residential commissions including the Children’s Country Home, a school and residence for convalescent children located 1731 Bunker Hill Road NE (1929-1930; listed on the National Register in 2003), and several Sullivan-led hospital designs, including the Columbia Hospital for Women and the Loudoun County, Virginia Hospital. In 1931, the Washington Board of Trade recognized the Children’s Home as the “Outstanding Building of the Year.” In the 1930s, Sullivan acted as consulting architect for the Architect of the Capitol David Lynn; in this capacity, he designed the East Wing addition to the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill (1932-1933).

In addition to running his own firm, Sullivan was active with an innovative design collaborative called The Allied Architects of Washington, D.C., Inc. In 1925, Horace Peaslee and other prominent members of the D.C. Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) formed the Allied Architects of Washington, D.C., Inc., a loose confederation of prominent local architects who banded together to pursue large public and semipublic commissions in the city. Modeled on a similar architectural group started in Los Angeles in 1919, the Allied Architects worked collaboratively, sometimes holding internal design competitions and then selecting and combining the best elements of the winning designs. The group’s bylaws provided for one-fourth of the corporation’s net proceeds to be spent on efforts to advance architecture in the District of Columbia and to educate the public about good design.

The Allied Architect’s most prominent commission was the design for the Longsworth House Office Building (first design submitted 1925; completed 1933). Other designs and studies pursued by the group included the never-built National Stadium on East Capitol Street; the D.C. Municipal Center; designs for a downtown Naval Hospital; the Naval Academy Memorial Gates; a D.C. National Guard Armory proposal; design and planning studies of Georgetown; alleys in D.C.; and a study for the beautification of East Capitol Street. The Allied Architects disbanded in 1949. The known members of Allied Architects were: Horace Peaslee, Louis Justement, Gilbert LaCoste Rodier, Frank Upman, Nathan C. Wyeth, Percy C. Adams, Robert F. Beresford, Fred H. Brooke, Ward Brown, Appleton P. Clark, William Deming, Jules Henri deSibour, Edward W. Donn, Jr., William Douden, W.H. Irwin Fleming, Benjamin C. Flournoy, Charles Gregg, Arthur B. Heaton, Arved L. Kundzin, Luther M. Leisenring, O.Harvey Miller, Victor Mindeleff, Thomas A. Mullett, Fred V. Murphy, Fred B. Pyle, George N. Ray, Fred J. Ritter, Delos H. Smith, Alex H. Sonneman, Francis P. Sullivan, Maj. George O. Totten, Leonidas P. Wheat, Jr., and Lt. Col. George C. Will [member information from C. Ford Peatross, ed., Capital Drawings: Architectural Designs for Washington, D.C., from the Library of Congress (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), pp. 36-38 and fn 39].

Sullivan was a respected member of the architecture profession in Washington, D.C.; he held several leadership positions in both the national AIA and the D.C. Chapter of the AIA. During his tenure as President of the Washington, D.C. Chapter of the AIA in 1933, Sullivan focused attention on pressuring the D.C. Municipal Architects Office to contract with private architects to design municipal buildings. During the 1930s, Sullivan also chaired the AIA’s Committee on Public Works where he and others argued that the Department of the Treasury should, likewise, employ private firms to both instill greater variety and creativity in federal design and to employ otherwise out-of-work architects. He succeeded in getting the Treasury to establish a joint committee on which he served to determine how the department’s Procurement Division and the AIA could collaborate. In addition, Sullivan’s AIA and professional advocacy activities included chairing the AIA’s Committee on the National Capital, Committee on Public Works, and the Committee on Interprofessional Relations.

In 1937, the AIA selected Sullivan as its delegate to the International Congress of Modern Architecture (a.k.a. CIAM – Congres International d’Architecture Moderne), an organization of European architects founded in 1928 by prominent modern designers Le Corbusier and Sigfried Giedion to promote and disseminate the principles of the Modern Movement in design and city planning. The topic of focus at the 1937 conference held in Paris, France was “Dwelling and Recovery.” Sullivan’s trip to France and his exposure to Modern design and housing principles may have influenced his 1940 design of a public housing development for the D.C. Alley Dwelling Authority. Located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood at K Street and 4th Street SE, the Carrollsburg Housing Project incorporated a series of simple, brick-and-tile block , two- and three-story duplexes and apartment buildings with little to no architectural adornment. All of the buildings have been recently demolished and replaced by the EYA development company’s “Capital Quarters” neighborhood development.

In 1939, Sullivan was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, one of the highest levels of recognition in the profession of architecture. He was recognized for his architectural and civic accomplishments, including his dedication to promoting the beautification of the Nation’s Capital.

Sullivan was active in local civic organizations, including the Cleveland Park-Cathedral Heights Citizens’ Association, the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, and as chair of the Washington Board of Trade’s Committee on Cultural Development. He was a published author of one novel and many articles. His writings covered architecture and city planning topics and were published in both professional and popular journals such as the Journal of the American Institute of Architects and House Beautiful.

During World War II, Sullivan served on the Central Technical Committee for Civilian Defense in Washington, D.C. and as district engineer for the Air Raid Shelter Service. He continued to work during the war, designing an admissions department addition to Children’s Hospital at 1216 W Street NW (former location of Children’s National Medical Center). In 1947, he designed a modernist style residence for Robert Whitely in Woodley Park (2550 28th Street NW). According to one source, in 1955, Sullivan formed a new partnership with Delos H. Smith and Joseph W. Burcham called Sullivan, Smith & Burcham. Sullivan died in 1958 after a long illness; he is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

[Source: DC Architects Directory, Washington DC Office of Planning, 2012]