When a Little Nepotism Can Lead to a Beautiful Thing: Charles Adams Platt and 1 West Mount Vernon Place

On April 21st 1892, The Baltimore Sun reported Mr. and Mrs. Francis M Jencks of New York visiting Baltimore, to oversee improvements on a home they had recently purchased at 1 West Mount Vernon Place, adding that Mr. Jencks would be residing there as soon as the work was done. 

The Jencks mansion, early 20th century photo: loc.gov

 Designed for Doctor J. H. Thomas around 1850 by the architectural firm of Niernsee & Neilson, the late Greek revival mansion with Italianate accents had been considered one of the showplaces of the city from the time it was built, hosting luminaries such as England’s future King Edward VII and the Hungarian Statesman Lajos Kossuth within its walls. After forty-odd years of occupancy by the Thomas family however, the place was undoubtedly in need of some updates to get it up to gilded age standards and the contemporary tastes of its new owners.

Elizabeth Platt Jencks circa 1895 (painting by Thomas Dewing; the de Young Museum)

 Fortunately, Mrs. Jencks (née Elizabeth Platt) had been born and raised in an artistic family and knew exactly where to turn, tapping her younger brother for the job. His name? Charles Adams Platt.  

Charles Adams Platt

While Charles Platt is best remembered today as one of America’s preeminent gilded age architects, in 1892 he would have considered himself a painter and etcher who had only recently started dabbling in the field. Born in New York City in 1861, he began studying art in 1878 at the National Academy of Design and later studied etching under Stephen Parrish.

Etching of Gloucester Harbor by Platt, 1880 - National Gallery of Art

Traveling to Europe in 1882, he studied in the Paris atelier of Jules Joseph Lefebvre and exhibited his paintings and etchings at the Paris Salon of 1885. Returning to New York after the deaths of his father and his new bride in 1886 and 1887, the grief-stricken Platt slowly turned back to etching and landscape painting. Fellow painter Henry Walker invited him up to Cornish New Hampshire in 1889, where he swiftly became part of the vibrant arts colony there.

Charles Platt’s house and garden in Cornish, NH

After designing his own house and garden and perhaps helping Walker with his, a neighbor Annie Lazarus asked him to design a house and garden for her, giving him his first professional commission. With little formal training, he enlisted his friend Stanford White for technical assistance and produced modern interpretation of an Italian villa for her, named High Court.

High Court

Whether Elizabeth was impressed by these early results, wanted to support her brother in his new field of interest or simply trusted his taste and judgment, it ultimately proved to be a good call on her part. Before Charles focused on his sister’s new home, however, he went on a trip to Italy with their brother William to photograph gardens there, publishing the results in an 1894 book.

 The Baltimore Sun reported on the plans filed for the renovations of 1 West Mount Vernon Place. They included the addition of bathrooms on the second and third floors of the house with additional servants quarters over the stables. The rear porch would be enclosed to become a conservatory, the dining room would gain a bay window, and the library would gain a new chimney piece and the front entry and staircase were to be altered.

View of the conservatory and dining rooms bay window from the rear

It shared details on the dining room’s new woodwork and color schemes for the double parlors. The one thing it didn’t mention was Platt’s name. Instead, it wrote that Charles Cassell, a well-known and respected architect in Baltimore at the time, had filed the plans. I couldn’t discern if Charles Platt, still new to architecture, didn’t have the technical skill to prepare formal plans at this point in his career, if Charles Cassell served more as a project manager since Platt lived in New York, or if the two Charleses actively collaborated on the project. 

 What is clear is that the results were stunning. It should come as no surprise given Platt’s interests that the dining room’s décor was inspired by the Italian renaissance.

He widened the staircase slightly

and topped it with an oval tiffany skylight.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the job was Platt’s sensitivity to the good design that was already there. George W Starr, the plasterer who worked on the house previously, was called back to remove some extraneous decorative elements in the double parlors while adding additional elements to the hall, the subtle changes set off by the spaces’ white and ivory color palettes.

 While the paper stated work would be completed by November 1894, when the Jencks returned to Baltimore on December 17th of that year, they checked into the Stafford Hotel, an indication that then as now construction timeline estimates tend to err on the optimistic side. After they officially moved in, the Jencks began to entertain in their new elegant spaces. One of their early notable events the hosted was a Bal Poudre in February 1896 to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

 While Charles Platt began to design more homes and gardens, he continued to pursue his career as a landscape painter during the 1890s while firmly establishing himself as one of the country’s preeminent architects for the gilded age elite. His sister and her husband became clients once again after purchasing 90 acres near Dublin New Hampshire in 1898. Platt ended up designing two summer cottages for them on the property in the restrained colonial revival style. While Beech Hill the Jencks’ former home there has suffered a somewhat ignominious fate,

Beech Hill, abandoned and forlorn circa 2013 photo: wikimedia commons via Magicpiano

1 West Mount Vernon Place has had a much happier ending, today a part of The Walters Art Museum.  

After a sensitive and skillful restoration, much of Platt’s work there remains intact, enhanced, and viewable by the public today.

For more information on the house, its history, and its occupants, I would recommend downloading their app 1 West, which contains a font of information.