Morse & Hall

Alpheus Carey Morse (June 3, 1818 - November 25, 1893) was an American architect, with offices in Providence, Rhode Island.

Morse was born in Boston in 1818. His father was Hazen Morse, a noted engraver. As a young man, Morse studied under Alexander Parris, before going off to study in Europe. He first appears in the 1847-48 Boston directory, as an artist with rooms on Tremont Row. His first architectural commission was a church in Haverhill, the town that his family was from. In 1852, Boston architect George Snell employed Morse to design the interiors of the Boston Music Hall.

Morse arrived in Providence in 1853. Initially, he was there to furnish designs for the house of a friend, Thomas A. Hoppin. This house, completed the same year, still stands at 383 Benefit Street. In 1855 he formed a partnership with Clifton A. Hall in Morse & Hall, a firm remembered solely for the Merchants Bank Building. This firm only lasted for the year. Upon the death of Thomas A. Tefft, Morse became the city's most sought-after architect. Through the 1870s he was known for designing houses and other buildings in a chaste Italian Renaissance style. The public taste changed, however, and in the last years of his practice Morse ably worked in the High Victorian Gothic, Romanesque Revival, and Queen Anne styles.

In 1857 he was a founding member of the American Institute of Architects. He designed many prominent buildings in Providence, including the old Rhode Island Hospital and Sayles Hall on the campus of Brown University.

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