Background
leigh Jr. French was born in 1894 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.
leigh Jr. French was born in 1894 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.
He was educated in New York City’s public schools, and later was graduated in Architecture at Columbia University.
In New York he served for a few years as draftsman for a number of well-known firms, but did not begin architectural practice until after the end of the first World War in which he served in the Army Ordnance Department.
Early in his career Mr. French acquired a reputation as a designer of fine homes, and in the course of years acquired a clientele of well-known persons. Among these were Mrs. Eleanor Patterson for whom he planned a house in the Georgian style at Dayton, Ohio: J. O. Lippincott at Bethacres, Pa., and Douglas Bomeisler on whose estate at Greenwich, Conn., was built a French Provencial mansion. In 1932 he originated "the house that grows” styled for the depression years, designed to be built in sections over a period of years. Among other works Mr. French was architect of the Catholic Cathedral in Brooklyn, Our Lady of Carmel, and in 1934 he went to Oak Ridge, Tenn., where he collaborated with others in planning housing for the experimenters in atomic energy.