James Hoban

James Hoban (1755 – December 8, 1831) was an Irish architect, best known for designing the White House in Washington, D.C.

James Hoban was raised on an estate belonging to the Earl of Desart in Cuffesgrange, near Callan, County Kilkenny. He worked there as a wheelwright and carpenter until his early twenties, when he was given an 'advanced student' place in the Dublin Society's Drawing School on Lower Grafton Street. He studied under Thomas Ivory.

He excelled in his studies and received the prestigious Duke of Leinster's medal for drawings of "Brackets, Stairs, and Roofs." from the Dublin Society in 1780. Later, Hoban found a position as an apprentice to Ivory, from 1779 to 1785.

Following the American Revolutionary War, Hoban emigrated to the United States, and established himself as an architect in Philadelphia in 1785.

Hoban was in South Carolina by April 1787, where he designed numerous buildings including the Charleston County Courthouse (1790–92), built on the ruins of the former South Carolina Statehouse (1753, burned 1788). President Washington admired Hoban's work on his Southern Tour, may have met with him in Charleston in May 1791, and summoned the architect to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (the temporary national capital) in June 1792.

In July 1792, Hoban was named winner of the design competition for the White House. His initial design seems to have had a 3-story facade, nine bays across (like the Charleston courthouse). Under Washington's influence, Hoban amended this to a 2-story facade, 11 bays across, and, at Washington's insistence, the whole presidential mansion was faced with stone. It is unclear whether any of Hoban's surviving drawings are actually from the competition.

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