Early Life
Stone was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a small college town in the northwest corner of the state. His family, early settlers of the area, owned a prosperous dry goods store. One of his childhood friends was J. William Fulbright, the future United States Senator from Arkansas and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Stone and Fulbright remained friends throughout their lives. Stone attended the University of Arkansas, where his interest in architecture was encouraged by the chairman of the art department. His older brother, James Hicks Stone (1886–1928), was already a practicing architect in Boston, Massachusetts, and James encouraged his younger brother to join him there. While in Boston, Stone attended the Boston Architectural Club (now Boston Architectural College), Harvard University, and MIT, but he never received a degree. While studying, Stone also apprenticed in the offices of Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch and Abbott, H. H. Richardson’s successor firm. Henry R. Shepley, one of the firm’s senior partners, mentored Stone while he was in Boston and assisted him throughout his career.
While studying in Massachusetts, he won the prestigious Rotch Travelling Fellowship (now called the Rotch Travelling Scholarship), which afforded him the opportunity to travel throughout Europe and North Africa on a two year stipend. Other winners of the Fellowship include the architects Ralph Walker (of Vorhees, Gmelin and Walker), Louis Skidmore (of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill), Wallace K. Harrison (of Harrison and Abramovitz) and Gordon Bunshaft (also of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill). During his travels, Stone maintained sketchbooks and produced exquisite watercolor drawings in the Beaux-Arts style. He also visited buildings by some of the leading modernist architects of the day, works which would influence his early practice. While in Venice, Stone met and courted Orlean Vandiver of Montgomery, Alabama. They would marry in New York City in 1930.
Read more about this topic: Edward Durell Stone
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Probably more than youngsters at any age, early adolescents expect the adults they care about to demonstrate the virtues they want demonstrated. They also tend to expect adults they admire to be absolutely perfect. When adults disappoint them, they can be critical and intolerant.”
—The Lions Clubs International and the Quest Nation. The Surprising Years, I, ch.4 (1985)
“Mothers who are strong people, who can pursue a life of their own when it is time to let their children go, empower their children of either gender to feel free and whole. But weak women, women who feel and act like victims of something or other, may make their children feel responsible for taking care of them, and they can carry their children down with them.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)