User:JPRiley/Charlton

Demetrius Frederick Charlton, known professionally as D. Fred Charlton, was born May 9, 1856, in Wrotham, Kent, England, to Thomas Charlton and Frances Maria Grevis-James. Francis Maria was the eldest daughter of Demetrius Grevis-James, a local landowner, while Charlton had been a tenant farmer on his Ightham Court estate; they married against her father's wishes but were reconciled with him by the time of Demetrius Frederick's birth. In 1873 he was admitted to King's College London but by the end of 1874 he was a pupil of civil engineer John Hawkshaw. He settled in Detroit c. 1877 at the age of 21. He worked for several Detroit architects, including Gordon W. Lloyd and William E. Brown, before joining the firm of William Scott & Company c. 1885. In 1887 the Scott firm was chosen to design the new Marquette Branch Prison, and Charlton was sent to Marquette to supervise construction of the project and manage a branch office. In 1889 Charlton was made a special partner in the Marquette office, which was renamed Scott & Charlton. In 1890 he separated from the Scott firm and opened his own office, making him the first professional architect to settle permanently in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Among his first major works was the Marquette home of John Munro Longyear and Mary Beecher Longyear (1892), a Richardsonian Romanesque mansion. After a decade the Longyears planned a move east but were unwilling to abandon their home. Under Charlton's supervision, the Marquette house was dismantled and shipped across the country, where much of its material was incorporated into a new and much enlarged house (1906) in Brookline, Massachusetts. Much of the original house's late-Victorian ornament was not reused, and the new house was reflective of the Jacobethan and other English revival styles.^{[1][2][3]: 506}

In 1892 Charlton was joined by the first of his three partners, R. William Gilbert. Gilbert had come from Boston and his own work had included the William H. Long Memorial in Hopkinton, New Hampshire. Late that year they opened the first of several branch offices, in Superior, Wisconsin, was established under Gilbert's management; it closed in 1894. In 1895 they were joined by Edward Demar, one of the architects of the Marquette City Hall, completed earlier that year. In 1896 Gilbert established another, more permanent, branch office in Milwaukee. He was joined there by Demar in 1899, though he withdrew from the partnership in 1901 after managing short-lived offices at Houghton and Sault Ste. Marie. In 1903 Edwin O. Kuenzli, a drafter in the Milwaukee office, became a partner. Gilbert also withdrew in 1904, and the firm was renamed a last time to Charlton & Kuenzli, with Charlton in Marquette and Kuenzli in Milwaukee.

Charlton was married twice. He married first in 1884 to Alice Rosa Thompson, his first cousin, in England. She died in 1885 of complications from childbirth. He married second in Detroit to 1887 to Alice H. Grylls, a native of Cornwall and a sister of H. J. Maxwell Grylls, a colleague in the Brown and Scott offices and later a cofounder of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls. He had three children, all sons, one with his first wife and two with his second.

Charlton's practice in the Upper Peninsula coincided with major economic growth in the region. The major industry in the region was the mining of iron and copper, both of which were shipped from the port of Marquette.

At least thirteen works designed by Charlton and his partners have been listed on the United States National Register of Historic Places, and others contribute to listed historic districts.

Through a series of mergers, the Milwaukee office of the Charlton firm has survived. In 1919 Kuenzli combined the surviving office with that of William G. Herbst, who had established his firm in 1907, to form Herbst & Kuenzli. Kuenzli retired in 1942. With further changes in partnership, the firm was renamed William G. Herbst & Associates in 1947, Herbst, Jacoby & Herbst in 1955 and Herbst, Jacoby & Jacoby in 1964. In 1980 the firm merged with Mark P. Pfaller & Associates to form Pfaller, Herbst & Associates. The combined firm was further renamed Pfaller, Herbst & Eppstein in 1984, Herbst, Eppstein, Keller & Chadek in 1985, Eppstein Keller Uhen in 1991 and Eppstein Uhen Architects in 1995. The firm claims Herbst's date of 1907 as its founding.