Henry R. Shepley

Henry Richardson Shepley, FAIA, joined his father’s Boston architectural firm, Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, in 1914; that firm had been established in 1886 as a successor to the office founded by H. H. Richardson, who was Shepley’s maternal grandfather. The firm’s name has evolved over many decades, becoming Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott in 1952, and is now known as Shepley Bulfinch. Many of Shepley’s projects were medical or academic buildings, including New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital as well as buildings at Wellesley, Smith, and Vassar Colleges and Northeastern and Dartmouth Universities. His portfolio also included buildings at Harvard University, among them the Fogg Art Museum. Shepley received an undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1910 and a diploma from the École des Beaux-Arts in 1914. He was active in design and professional organizations, including the Boston Society of Architects, the Boston Architectural Center, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Academy of Arts and Letters, the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects, and the National Academy of Design. Shepley served as a trustee of the American Academy in Rome and on advisory commissions for the Departments of Treasury, State, and War, for the Architect of the Capitol, and for the Federal Projects Division of the Public Works Administration. He was the recipient of the New York Architectural League Medal (1933), the French Legion of Honor (1953), and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal (1958).