Chapter Nine: The Case for the Ingenious A
Table of Contents Rewriting this chapter Chapter Nine: The Case for the Ingenious A 116. Law's 1800 house became the fulcrum of the New Varnum Hotel Today, Thornton is a celebrated architect and his fame is not based solely on his Capitol design. Posthumously, Thornton had a stroke of luck. Historians credit him for designing houses built by John Tayloe III, General Washington and Thomas Law. Tayloe’s and Law’s houses were architecturally important when they were built but Thornton never claimed that he designed those houses. No contemporary credited him for designing them. After Law's house was finished and Tayloe's brick walls were raised, William Lovering advertised that he would share "specimens of buildings" that would fit into lots facing an intersection with streets at an acute angle. But no one credited Lovering for designing the houses. Attributing their design to Thornton serves the agenda of posterity. As a 1925 New York Times' headline attes...