Charles Kirby

Education

This building, an elaborate Italianate structure, was completed in 1858 and demolished in 1899.

Career

In the 1840s he began studying architecture in the office of early Worcester architect William Brown. Brown departed for Lowell in 1847, and Kirby was his successor. He and another of Brown"s students, Phineas Ball (later of Boyden & Ball), formed a partnership, Kirby & Balliol

They parted ways after only eight months, and Kirby left for Portland, Maine.

Kirby is last documented in Portland in 1850, and in 1852 he came to Boston. Kirby was also the architect of the Worcester Free Public Library, built in 1860 and also since demolished.

He practiced general architecture until about the outbreak of the Civil War. He then turned to land development, designing, building, and selling homes in the Back Bay area.

This appears to have been the bulk of his work for about a decade, when he returned to general practice.

He continued to primarily design houses, with an exception in the Lawrence Model Lodging Houses, built in 1874. These apartments were built with a bequest from Abbott Lawrence, as housing for the poor. In 1878, Kirby left Massachusetts for California, settling in San Francisco.

Though Kirby was not directly involved in the firm"s affairs, but the two remained associated until 1882.

After his retirement, Kirby was the proprietor of the Sierra Park vineyard and winery near Fowler, with a distillery business in Selma. He died on April 5, 1910.

Achievements

• His first major commission in Boston, the Boston Public Library, was won in competition in 1855.