{{short description|American architect}} {{Infobox person | name = Lewis Pilcher | image = Vassar7.jpg | image_size = | caption = Jewett House, Vassar College | birth_date = 1871 | birth_place = | death_date = 1941 | death_place = | other_names = | known_for = Architect | alma_mater = Wesleyan University | education = Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation }}
'''Lewis F. Pilcher''', AIA (1871–1941), was an American academic and architect active in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century New York City. With William G. Tachau, he was a partner of Pilcher and Tachau, the predecessor firm of Tachau and Vought.<ref name=armoury>Nancy L. Todd.[https://books.google.com/books?id=0I7efjujcFQC&dq=Tachau+%26+Vought&pg=PA268] ''New York's Historic Armories: An Illustrated History'' (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2006), p.268</ref> He was a professor of art at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He subsequently was a state architect of New York.<ref name=Vassar>Karen Van Lengen and Lisa Reilly.''Vassar College: An Architectural Tour.'' The Campus Guide Series. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004), p.80</ref>
==Biography== Pilcher attended Wesleyan University from 1889-1890, and graduated from the Columbia School of Architecture in 1895.<ref name="TAR">{{cite journal |last1=Hamlin |first1=Prof. A.D.F. |title=The State Architect and His Works |journal=The Architectural Record |date=January 1923 |volume=LIII |issue=1 |pages=27–43 |url=http://www.usmodernist.org/AR/AR-1923-01.PDF |accessdate=13 July 2018}}</ref> He began his career working for Brooklyn architect Mercein Thomas, then started his own practice with former classmate W.G. Tachau.<ref name="TAR" /> In 1901 Pilcher won a competition to design the Troop C Armory in Brooklyn, which set the state for his later term as State Architect of New York, in which position he would design several armories across the state.<ref name="TAR" /> He went on to design the armories in Troy, Albany, Buffalo, Yonkers, and Ithaca.<ref name="TAR" />
Through his connections at Vassar, Pilcher designed the nine-story North Residence (1907), renamed in 1915 as Jewett House. The structure is composed of a four-story U-shaped arms block, which frames a quad-side court, and is attached to a rear eight-story tower that incorporates a 30,000-gallon water tank. The structure extensively used steel and concrete structural components faced with red brick and terracotta ornamentation. The high level of decorative work, including crenellations, grotesque terracotta faces and animals was incongruous to Vassar’s restrained red brick-with-sandstone-trim Quad dormitories and was nicknamed “Pilcher’s Crime.” The structure failed to attract donors who would have attached their name and it was instead renamed in honor of the college’s first president, Milo P. Jewett.<ref name=Vassar/>
His partner, William G. Tachau, went on to a more successful career in the architectural firm of Tachau and Vought.<ref name=armoury/>
thumb|left|Kingsbridge Armory, Bronx, NY
==Works== *Jewett House (1907, formerly North Residence before 1915)<ref name=Vassar/> *Troop C Armory in Brooklyn, New York<ref name=armoury/><ref>https://6tocelebrate.org/site/troop-c-armory-aka-bedford-armory/</ref> *The Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx, New York<ref name=armoury/> *The Lake Hopatcong Yacht Club, Mount Arlington, New Jersey * New York State Drill Hall, aka Barton Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1917<ref>{{cite book |title=texts Guide to the campus : Cornell University |date=1920 |publisher=Cornell University |page=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924055960987/page/n83 54] |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924055960987}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}} {{Commons category|Lewis F. Pilcher}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pilcher, Lewis}} Category:Vassar College faculty Category:Architects from New York (state) Category:Companies based in Manhattan Category:Defunct architecture firms based in New York City Category:People from Poughkeepsie, New York Category:1871 births Category:1941 deaths