Bit of Brooklyn History Architect, Fay Kellogg

THE FOREMOST WOMAN ARCHITECT IN THE U.S.

BIT OF BROOKLYN HISTORY — ARCHITECT, FAY KELLOGG

Described as “the foremost woman architect in the United States” in the early years of the 20th century, Fay Kellogg specialized in steel construction. At the urging of her father, she decided to study architecture after first intending to become a doctor. After two years of learning drawing and mathematics from her German tutor, she spent an additional year of instruction at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, becoming the first of Pratt’s female students to become a practicing architect.

Surrogate’s Court

In her early career, she found employment with Rudolphe Lawrence Daus, working on projects such as the Thirteenth Regiment Armory in Brooklyn (now the Pamoja House Homeless Shelter). After one year of employment with the architectural firm, Carrere and Hastings, Kellogg went to Paris to study at the atelier of Marcel Pérouse de Monclos. During her two years there, she vigorously fought for the admission of women to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Ultimately successful in her fight for the admittance of other women, she herself was unable to attend the school.

Upon returning to the US in 1900, she worked with the established architect John R. Thomas, helping to design and prepare plans for the Hall of Records which was designed in the Beaux Arts style (now the landmarked Surrogate’s Courthouse). She is credited with designing the grand staircase in the central atrium. After Thomas’ death in 1901, Kellogg struck out on her own and set up her own business in 1903.

She completed many projects and also helped design the Woman’s Memorial Hospital (now the Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn) that was founded by female physicians. Unafraid to personally supervise her own projects, she once gave an interview while standing on a beam nine stories above the ground during construction of one of her buildings telling the reporter, “I don’t think a woman architect ought to be satisfied with small pieces, but launch out into business buildings. That is where money and name are made. I don’t approve of a well-equipped woman creeping along; let her leap ahead as men do. All she needs is courage.”

In the spring of 1918, while overseeing construction of a YMCA hostess house at Camp Gordon in Atlanta, Georgia, Kellogg became ill. In July of the same year, Kellogg died at her home in Brooklyn at the age of 47.