James Hoban’s greatest monument is about to receive a new tenant

James Hoban

 

By Ray O’Hanlon

Donald Trump owns property in Ireland.

A few weeks from now he will take up residence in a property designed by an Irishman, James Hoban.

Hoban died on December 8, 1831 at the age of 73.

No mausoleum could ever match the legacy that is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

A legacy that he designed and created twice.

Hoban was born in Callan, County Kilkenny, in 1758.

He was Catholic and from a family that was far from wealthy, so attaining a meaningful level of education was always going to be an uphill battle.

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But Hoban was determined, ambitious and clearly talented. He managed to secure entry to the Royal Dublin Society where he studied architecture.

He proved to be an outstanding student, but sufficient work was not forthcoming after his graduation.

So he quit Ireland for America, making landfall in Charleston, South Carolina in 1785. From there the young immigrant made his way to Philadelphia, established himself as a noted architect, only to return to Charleston where he began to attract commissions.

Among the many significant buildings attributed to Hogan include the South Carolina Statehouse in Charleston, and the capitol building in Columbia.

Hoban would also teach architecture, counting among his students Robert Mills - the future designer of the Washington Monument.

Talent can take you far. A little luck will always take you farther.

In 1791, Hoban was lucky enough to meet President George Washington, this during the latter’s trip to South Carolina.

Hoban impressed the president, as did his elegant Irish Georgian building designs.

A year later, when Pierre Charles L’Enfant was fired as the chief architect of Washington, D.C., the president remembered Hoban and sent for him.

Hoban was invited to participate in design competitions for the Capitol and the planned presidential mansion.

In July, 1792, Washington and three commissioners charged with overseeing the building of the new capital city reviewed the entries.

They rejected all 16 proposals for the Capitol (including Hoban’s), but selected Hoban’s design for the executive mansion, a design inspired by a building that Washington had never set eyes upon - Leinster House in Dublin.

The future home of the Oireachtas was/is a neoclassical structure dating to 1745.

As with the White House, Leinster House has eleven rows of windows with alternating triangular and rounded pediments, along with four central columns.

As columnist Ed O’Donnell wrote in the Irish Echo some years ago, several factors conspired to delay construction of the White House.

To begin with, Hoban had difficulty recruiting sufficiently skilled workers.

Few seemed interested in leaving established cities like Boston and New York to work in the swampy, undeveloped capital.

Hoban additionally had to incorporate several modifications to his design demanded by the commissioners, not the least of which was an order to reduce the building from three stories to two.

Nonetheless, after eight years of construction, the White House was deemed ready for occupancy.

The first residents, President John Adams and his wife, Abigail, moved into the mansion early in November 1800.

To their great annoyance they found the house cold and much of the interior unfinished. They stayed only four months as a result of Adams losing the election to Thomas Jefferson.

Cold though it may have been during winter, Hoban’s White House would prove to be a springboard for future commissions.

He subsequently designed many of the capital city’s hotels, government buildings, and private homes.

In 1802, Hoban won a seat on the city council, a position he held for the rest of his life. He was also a leading parishioner at St. Patrick’s Catholic church, which he helped establish in 1794.

The “cold” White House would become unbearably hot during the War of 1812, a fight which continued past that year.

In 1814, the British burned the house, now occupied by the Madisons, James and Dolly.

The following year, with the war concluded, Hoban was assigned the task of rebuilding, a near total process as the structure had been near totally destroyed.

Despite President James Monroe’s decision to move into the unfinished residence in 1817, work continued for two more years until halted with the onset of an economic recession in 1819.

Construction resumed under Hoban’s direction in 1824, after Congress approved funds to complete the south portico. Hoban returned to complete the north portico in 1829-30, this just in time for the first Irish-American president, Andrew Jackson.

James Hoban died on this date in 1831, at the age of 73.

He rests in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington.

Of course the White House, Hoban’s lasting monument, never rests.

It is a 24/7 address soon to be visited, not by the rampaging British, but rather by rummaging movers.

 

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