Who Is Richard Sharp Smith?
I have written a couple of blogs about our visits to Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, North Carolina. This historic Cemetery offers us an opportunity to get out together, stroll along the walkways and roads that go throughout the cemeteries and take in the history and culture that lies within the Cemetery walls.
A popular attraction in Asheville, this Cemetery is historical and scenic, but it also is the resting place of many of the city's, state’s, and nation’s prominent citizens. Today, for a couple different reasons, I am going to take a look at one of those citizens, Richard Sharpe Smith.
Who is Richard Sharp Smith?
Richard Sharp Smith was born in 1853 in Yorkshire, England and was the son of Jones Smith and Saleta Watterson. Richard decided to seek a career in architecture and he received his architectural training in the office of his cousin, George Smith. Richard worked for a variety of architects in Manchester, England, but in 1882 he decided to immigrate to the United States. He began his work with the Reid Brothers who were architects in Evansville, Indiana. In 1883 he decided to move to New York City and joined the office of Bradford L. Gilbert where he spent most of his time supervising the design and construction of railroad stations. In 1886, Smith left Gilbert's office and joined the office of Richard Morris Hunt where he worked on various projects until he was assigned the project that would change his life. In 1889 he was assigned to the Biltmore House project in Asheville, North Carolina.
Hunt would send Mr. Smith to Asheville to be his supervising architect over the Biltmore House's construction. He would also be involved in the design and construction of other various buildings on the Biltmore Estate. As early as 1892, George Vanerbilt would approach Smith and ask him to design additional buildings for him, which propelled Smith into his own private practice.
Smith would live at the Biltmore House during his time working there. Many believe that while working here, Smith met one of the Vanderbilt’s household staff, a Scottish lass named Isabel Cameron. ( I will discuss more about this meeting at the close of my blog). Richard and Isabel would marry, become U.S. citizens, settle in Asheville, and go on to have four children together.
Although he would never return to his home country of England, Smith remained a true English gentleman in his appearance and demeanor. You would often find him walking around in a tailored tweed suit with walking caps and canes. He was a devoted Episcopalian and was a member of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, which he designed himself in 1914.
Smith designed more than two dozen buildings in Biltmore Village including residences, offices, and an infirmary which used pebbledash stucco, brick accents and half-timbered exteriors to invoke an English feeling. He designed the Young Men’s Institute, at the corner of Eagle and Market streets in downtown Asheville, utilizing an English cottage form for a civic building. Vanderbilt also asked Smith to design a series of rental villas or “model cottages “ on Vernon Hill across the Swannanoa River from Biltmore.
Smith also designed a number of houses in the Montford and Chestnut Hill neighborhoods in Asheville including the Annie West House, designed in 1900 on Chestnut Street features Smith’s continued use of pebbledash stucco, half timbering, and diamond-pane windows on a multi-gabled residence. The Ottis Green House and Charles Jordan House, both designed in 1900, show Smith combining the pebbledash and half-timbered effects with other elements from the Craftsman and Colonial Revival styles.
In 1905. Smith designed the Neoclassical-style Henderson County Courthouse in Hendersonville NC. Smith also collaborated with internationally-known architect-engineer Rafael Guastavino on the design for the Basilica of St Lawrence in downtown Asheville. Having Previously worked together at Biltmore, Smith and Guastavino planned the spacious and opulently finished structure in the Spanish Baroque Revival style.
Smith would die in 1924 at the age of 70. The Asheville Citizen Times would say of Smith, “ after long years of residence in Asheville, Mr Smith has done more than any other person to beautify the city, he came to Asheville just at a time when he was needed, and was really a pioneer architect in the community.”
Now let's return to the conversation of Richard Sharp Smith and Isabel Cameron. It has long been a story discussed that the two met at the Biltmore House. But did they? Isabel was born in 1875 and is 22 years younger than Smith. Through ancestral research I have discovered that before Smith immigrated to the US, he appears to have lived in the town of Lancashire, Scotland, this according to the 1881 census. Lancanshire, Scotland is also the same town that Isabel Cameron lived in with her family. Coincidence? Was Smith a friend or acquaintance with Cameron's family? She would have been a 6 Year old girl at the time. There is no evidence that Cameron's family ever left Scotland. How did Isabel come to work at the exact home that Smith was working at in Asheville NC, thousands of miles away from Scotland? Coincidence? In fact, right when Cameron would have been 18 years of age, 1893, Smith was finding favor in the eyes of George Vanderbilt. Could Smith have arranged for Isabel to come to the US? Pay her way? Get her a job at the Vanderbilt’s house? Possibly as a favor to her family? Then marry in 1896? I don't know. I can't find any supporting evidence to make a final decision. But I am going to keep searching.
What is my interest in the life of this English Immigrant, successful architect, Prominent citizen of Asheville, and an intriguing love story in America's largest house? The answer is also the answer to the title of this blog.
Who is Richard Sharp Smith? He is the 2nd Great-Grandfather of my soulmate, and the 3rd Great-grandfather of my children. Richard Sharpe Smith is one of the ancestors of my family.
Blessed Be!
By Michael Walters
The Ancestors Fire
Writing the Voices of the unheard
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