Arthur Rotch

Rotch was born May 13, 1850, in Milton, Massachusetts to Benjamin Smith Rotch (1817–1882) and Annie Bigelow Lawrence (1820–1893). His was a prominent Boston family whose roots went back to Nantucket and New Bedford whaling and shipping interests in the 18th century. His maternal grandfather, Abbott Lawrence, was minister to Great Britain and one of the founders of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

He studied humanities at Harvard College for four years, graduating in 1871, and spent two years (1872–1873) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then worked as a draftsman at the firm of Ware and Brunt.[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZVSL6eyIxZkC&dq=rotch+and+tilden+architects&pg=PA112 O'Gorman, James F., On the Boards: Drawings by Nineteenth-Century Boston Architects, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989], {{ISBN|9780812212877}} p. 112 From 1874 to 1880 studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and in the atelier of Emile Vaudremer.{{cite book|last1=Lawrence|first1=Robert Means|title=The Descendants of Major Samuel Lawrence of Groton, Massachusetts: With Some Mention of Allied Families|date=1904|publisher=Printed at the Riverside Press|isbn=9780608318417|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=osY6AAAAMAAJ&q=Lisette+DeWolf+Colt+rotch&pg=PA144|access-date=5 March 2017|language=en}}

While in France he was in charge of the restoration of the Château de Chenonceau.

In 1880, he became partner of Rotch & Tilden (Boston) with George Thomas Tilden, designing churches, the Memorial Library in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, gymnasiums of Bowdoin College and Phillips Exeter Academy, various buildings of Milton Academy, the art schools and art museum of Wellesley College, and many private houses and business blocks throughout the United States. In 1893, he designed Ventfort Hall in Lenox, Massachusetts for George Hale Morgan and Sarah Morgan, the daughter of Junius Spencer Morgan.{{cite news|last1=Brooke|first1=James|title=Travel Advisory; Berkshires Mansion Preserves the Gilded Age|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/19/travel/travel-advisory-berkshires-mansion-preserves-the-gilded-age.html |access-date=2023-06-07 |newspaper=The New York Times|date=19 August 2001}}

In 1884, he designed for his brother, Abbott Lawrence Rotch, the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory, the oldest, continuously operated weather Observatory in the United States – now both an International Benchmark Climate Station and a National Historic Landmark.[http://bluehill.org/observatory/about-us/history/ "A Brief History of the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory"], Blue Hill Observatory and Science Center

Rotch was chairman of the visiting committee of Fine Arts of Harvard University, a member of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

On November 16, 1892, he married Lisette DeWolf Colt.

In his will, he left more than $100,000 (equivalent to ${{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|100000|1894}}}} today) to public and charitable organizations.{{cite news |title=Boston Institutions Remembered.; Two Men Leave Large Sums of Money for Their Endowment. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-york-times-boston-institutions-r/127740604/ |access-date=2023-07-06 |newspaper=The New York Times |publication-date=23 August 1894 |page=12 |date=1894-08-22 |place=Boston |via=Newspapers.com}}

In 1883, Rotch and his siblings founded the Rotch Traveling Scholarship in memory of their father, Benjamin Smith Rotch. The scholarship sends an American student of architecture for a minimum of eight months study and travel abroad. Benjamin Rotch, a relatively well-known landscape artist, had studied painting in Paris in 1847,[http://rotch.org/about/index.html#history Rotch Travelling Scholarship] and appreciated the "value of foreign travel in stimulating young architects' imagination through contact with great buildings of the past."White, Eric. [https://www.architects.org/news/memory-fathers "In Memory of Fathers"], Boston Society of Architects, June 15, 2016

Arthur Rotch died of pleurisy in Beverly, Massachusetts on August 15, 1894, at the age of forty-four.{{Cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KRdLAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA57 |title=Death of Arthur Rotch |journal=American Architect & Building News |volume=XLV |number=793 |page=57 |date=August 18, 1894 |access-date=2023-07-06 |via=Google Books}}{{Cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KRdLAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA21 |title=Twenty-Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Directors, A. I. A. |journal=American Architect & Building News |volume=XLVI |number=982 |page=20 |date=1894-10-20 |access-date=2023-07-06 |via=Google Books}} He was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery.{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/boston-evening-transcript-funeral-of-art/127741417/ |title=Funeral of Arthur Rotch |newspaper=Boston Evening Transcript |page=1 |date=1894-08-18 |access-date=2023-07-06 |via=Newspapers.com}}

He was a vestryman at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Boston; the reredos was donated by his sister Aimee Rotch Sergent Sargent in memory of him, their sister, and their parents.[https://www.emmanuelboston.org/mission/building/highlights-of-our-building/highlights-furnishings-memorials/#rotch "Rotch Reredos"], Emmanuel Episcopal Church

• Rotch & Tilden

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• {{Cite Appletons'|wstitle=Rotch, Arthur|year=1900}}

• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Arthur Rotch |sopt=t}}
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=YRSZ30aTMkAC&dq=rotch+and+tilden+architects&pg=PA20 Photo of Arthur Rotch]

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Category:1850 births

Category:1894 deaths

Category:Architects from Boston

Category:Harvard College alumni

Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni

Category:People from Milton, Massachusetts

Category:American alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts

Category:19th-century American architects

Category:Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery