Ellis Wainwright
| Ellis Wainwright | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
August 3, 1850 Godfrey, Illinois |
| Died | November 6, 1924 (aged 74) St. Louis, Missouri |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Capitalist |
Ellis Wainwright (August 3, 1850 – November 6, 1924) was an American capitalist, brewer, art collector and socialite from St. Louis, Missouri. He was President of the St. Louis Brewing Company and Director of the St. Louis and Suburban Company. He is best known for the Wainwright Building in Downtown St. Louis which was one of the first skyscrapers in the world and one of the most important office buildings of the period.
Wainwright was born on August 3, 1850, and although the family hailed from Godfrey, Illinois, he grew up in nearby St Louis, where he also spent much of his adult life. The son of a prominent brewer and building contractor, an English immigrant named Samuel and Catherine Dorothy, Wainwright was an important figure in railway development in the region. In 1889, he consolidated his father's Wainwright Brewery Company (in which Samuel Wainwright had successfully doubled the profits) with a brewing syndicate and established the St. Louis Brewing Association.
Wainwright visited Europe in the summer of 1890. Meanwhile his plans for the Wainwright Building, named in his honor, and designed by Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan were put into effect. It was to be built on the corner of Seventh Street and Chestnut Street in Downtown St. Louis on a plot of land which had been purchased by his mother Catherine. On November 7, 1890, a drawing by Charles K. Ramsey of how the building would look appeared in the Globe-Democrat. It was a nine or ten storey red-terracotta cuboid structure, being 114 feet by 127 feet, and held 225 offices when completed in 1892. On November 11, 1890, Sullivan received planning permission to build the office building which would cost over £500,000 (US$13,327,778 in 2017 dollars). The building was among the first skyscrapers in the world and is described as "a highly influential prototype of the modern office building" by the National Register of Historic Places. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright called the Wainwright Building "the very first human expression of a tall steel office-building as Architecture."
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