Local architect Henry T. Elden, known worldwide for his circular hillside house and studio Top-O-Rock, died at home Saturday. He was 94.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Local architect Henry T. Elden, known worldwide for his circular hillside house and studio Top-O-Rock, died at home Saturday. He was 94.
A native of Pennsylvania, Elden designed more than 800 buildings throughout West Virginia. He also influenced a generation of young architects, who began their careers as interns in his office.
He served a term on Charleston City Council and once ran for mayor and county commissioner.
With his wife, Evelyn, who died in 1993, he traveled extensively, taking photographs wherever he went. He sailed the Baltic and the Mediterranean with a German business partner, skied the high Sierras, and rode a bicycle 10 miles a day in his 80s.
"He was his own person - self-confident, sometimes a little bit quirky. You never knew what to expect," said retired architect Jerry Lamb, who worked for Elden in the 1960s in a college co-op program.
"He was quite outspoken," Lamb recalled. "He probably rubbed some people the wrong way because he spoke his mind, and to be a politician you can't do that."
Elden's aptitude for architecture emerged in mechanical drawing classes in high schooL. He earned a degree during the Depression from Carnegie Tech and moved to Charleston.
During World War II he joined the structural engineering group at Union Carbide, got married and enlisted in the Navy.
He started his own architecture business in 1948, in his son's bedroom of the home he built on Churchill Drive. As the business grew he moved the office into the basement, then into a studio he built next door.
"I remember the first time I went over to his office on Churchill Drive. I was in junior high school," Lamb said. "He was working on the plans for DuPont High School, which is now the middle school."
A few years later, Lamb went to work there. "At that time he was doing a lot of schools around the southern part of the state - Boone County, Logan County.
"He always had plants in the office. He'd decide they needed to be hosed down - no warning - and we'd cover up all the drawings."
In 1968, Elden bought a supposedly unusable piece of hillside property from photo shop owner John Merrill, carved out a steep drive from Porter Road and designed a glass and steel structure consisting of two interlocking circles - one for his home, one for his studio. He built the home around a tree and filled the place with lush greenery.
Top-O-Rock, Elden's best-known design, has won numerous awards. It has been featured in Parade magazine and, as recently as 2002, on the "Dream Builders" program on HGTV.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Local architect Henry T. Elden, known worldwide for his circular hillside house and studio Top-O-Rock, died at home Saturday. He was 94.
A native of Pennsylvania, Elden designed more than 800 buildings throughout West Virginia. He also influenced a generation of young architects, who began their careers as interns in his office.
He served a term on Charleston City Council and once ran for mayor and county commissioner.
With his wife, Evelyn, who died in 1993, he traveled extensively, taking photographs wherever he went. He sailed the Baltic and the Mediterranean with a German business partner, skied the high Sierras, and rode a bicycle 10 miles a day in his 80s.
"He was his own person - self-confident, sometimes a little bit quirky. You never knew what to expect," said retired architect Jerry Lamb, who worked for Elden in the 1960s in a college co-op program.
"He was quite outspoken," Lamb recalled. "He probably rubbed some people the wrong way because he spoke his mind, and to be a politician you can't do that."
Elden's aptitude for architecture emerged in mechanical drawing classes in high schooL. He earned a degree during the Depression from Carnegie Tech and moved to Charleston.
During World War II he joined the structural engineering group at Union Carbide, got married and enlisted in the Navy.
He started his own architecture business in 1948, in his son's bedroom of the home he built on Churchill Drive. As the business grew he moved the office into the basement, then into a studio he built next door.
"I remember the first time I went over to his office on Churchill Drive. I was in junior high school," Lamb said. "He was working on the plans for DuPont High School, which is now the middle school."
A few years later, Lamb went to work there. "At that time he was doing a lot of schools around the southern part of the state - Boone County, Logan County.
"He always had plants in the office. He'd decide they needed to be hosed down - no warning - and we'd cover up all the drawings."
In 1968, Elden bought a supposedly unusable piece of hillside property from photo shop owner John Merrill, carved out a steep drive from Porter Road and designed a glass and steel structure consisting of two interlocking circles - one for his home, one for his studio. He built the home around a tree and filled the place with lush greenery.
Top-O-Rock, Elden's best-known design, has won numerous awards. It has been featured in Parade magazine and, as recently as 2002, on the "Dream Builders" program on HGTV.
"When you think what you hear now about green architecture, wasn't he 40 years ahead of his time - building his office around that tree," said architect Francis "Bo" Guffey.
Elden also designed post offices, hospitals, two Charleston high-rises - Lee Terrace and Jarrett Terrace, and the Vining Library at WVU Tech.
But one of his best-known designs, the West Virginia Building and Loan office near Charleston Town Center, was torn down in the early '90s to make way for a now-defunct Bob Evans restaurant. The structure was known for its colonnade of white golf tee-shaped columns that circled the exterior.
Architect Lloyd Miller is among those who misses the building. "It was a shame we lost that," he said.
Miller worked for Elden for three years as an intern.
"He was quite a creative person and I think it helped me [learn to] treat architecture as an art, not a science, treating architecture as an asset to the environment and not just a placeholder," Miller said.
"He was very good about giving college graduates a start. He was willing to train people. I would say quite a few architects in town got their start there."
Funeral arrangements for Elden were incomplete Monday. He is survived by his son, Ted, at home, and his daughter, Barbara Scuvullo, in San Francisco.
Elden once told a reporter he thought he died in 2002 when he had a bad reaction to some medicine.
"I was glad for the experience," he said. "I've had a good run. And I stopped to smell the roses along the way."
Reach Jim Balow
at ba...@wvgazette.com
or 304-348-5102.
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