Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge

As the successor to the studio of Henry Hobson Richardson, they completed his unfinished work before developing their own practice, and had extensive commissions in monumental civic, religious and collegiate architecture.

On the day of his death, Richardson left instructions that his practice should be continued by his three chief assistants: George Foster Shepley (November 7, 1860 – July 17, 1903), Charles Hercules Rutan (March 28, 1851 – December 17, 1914) and Charles Allerton Coolidge (November 30, 1858 – April 1, 1936), to whom in his declining health he had delegated greater and greater responsibility.

Before joining Richardson, both Shepley and Coolidge had worked for Ware & Van Brunt and had been educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

At first they were primarily engaged on the completion of Richardson's many unfinished works, including the Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh and the John J. Glessner House in Chicago.

[1] By the time of Richardson's death, the Richardsonian Romanesque style with which he is associated had become widely imitated and was seen as old-fashioned by the most progressive American architects.

Later historians such as Henry-Russell Hitchcock have found their Richardsonian work to be of a higher quality than that of other imitators, though in their hands, without Richardson's imagination, it became stale and formulaic.

Their Richardsonian works included the Ames Building (1889) in Boston, the Shadyside Presbyterian Church (1890) in Pittsburgh and the new campus of Stanford University (1891) near San Francisco.

[3] Their embrace of Neoclassicism first appeared in their unexecuted proposal for the Rhode Island State House (1891), a competition they lost to McKim.

[6] If this move was in part an attempt to allay the Chicagoans' concern that they were architectural carpetbaggers, it was likely unsuccessful as additional important work, including the master plan and buildings of the University of Chicago, went into their office.

Other principals were added to the partnership over the next twenty years: in 1960 by James Ford Clapp Jr. (November 18, 1908 – January 22, 1998),[19] son of the former partner of Clarence H. Blackall, in 1961 by Sherman Morss (February 22, 1912 – February 29, 1996),[20] in 1963 by Jean Paul Carlhian (November 7, 1919 – October 18, 2012)[21] and Hugh Shepley (March 17, 1928 – September 4, 2017),[22] son of Henry R. Shepley, and in 1969 by Otis B. Robinson (April 25, 1916 – April 20, 1999).

At this time the firm passed out of the control of the extended Richardson-Shepley-Coolidge family, which had led it since H. H. Richardson established himself independently in Brookline in 1878.