Purcell & Elmslie

Purcell & Elmslie. American architectural partnership of William Gray Purcell (1880–1965) and George Grant Elmslie (1871–1952), famous first for the various fine houses of the Prairie School. Elmslie, originally from Scotland, worked for a while with Adler & Sullivan and was responsible for the ornament on e.g. the Cage Building (1898–9) and the Carson Pirie Scott Store (1899–1904), both in Chicago, IL Purcell & Elmslie designed several small Banks for the Mid-West, e.g. First State Bank, Le Roy, MN (1914), which were similar to some of Sullivan's Banks. Their best work was in the field of private houses (e.g. Bradley House, Woods Hole, MA (1911), Owre House, Minneapolis (1911–12), Decker House, Holdridge, Lake Minnetonka, Minn. (1912–13), Purcell House, Minneapolis (1913), Backus House, Minneapolis (1915), and Purcell Bungalow, Rose Valley, PA (1918) ). Their Woodbury County Court House, Sioux City, IA (1915–17), was in a robust stripped Classical style, with certain details reminiscent of Wright's work in the brick façade.

Bibliography

W. Andrews (1955);
H. Brooks (1972);
Condit (1968);
Gebhard (1953, 1965a);
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, xix/1 (Mar. 1960), 62–8;
Placzek (ed.)(1982);
Spencer (ed.) (1979);
Jane Turner (1996)