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Chapter three

Coming of Age: Freedom and Vocation

In 1900, at the age of 17, Kingsley followed in the footsteps of his father and brothers and enrolled in Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. In many ways it must have been a relief to spend time away from his feuding family and to become engrossed in his studies. Louis spent most of his time in New York, where he pursued a legal career. His offices were located at 45 Broadway.¹

Timothy H had been living with Mabel in Blachley Lodge since their marriage. It was here that Timothy H died just before 8 p.m. on the evening of 1 January 1901.² He was 74 years old. A private funeral was held the following Friday and the infamous patriarch was finally laid to rest in Woodland Cemetery, beside his second wife, Louisa.

Within days of the burial, the estate of Timothy H. Porter was again at centre stage in the Stamford courts. The will was filed in the probate courts on 13 January.³ Timothy H’s will was described as ‘one of the most tangled estates that ever came before a Connecticut Probate Court’.⁴ His estate was estimated to be worth between one and three million dollars.⁵ When the will was read, it emerged that Timothy H had left the bulk of his estate to his young widow, Mabel. An amount of $10,000 was left to Louis, a similar amount to his cousin, Joseph A. Porter, and the remainder was willed to his youngest son, Kingsley.⁶ However, the estate also included a number of lucrative bonds and railroad securities belonging to his late wife, Louisa. These valuable commodities had been transferred to the Union Trust Company of New Haven when Timothy H was forced to sign them over to Merritt and Ritch, in order to secure his freedom from house arrest in 1894.⁷

Louis Porter was beside himself with rage at the thought that Mabel, the former governess, would get a cent of his late mother’s estate. Also, Mabel had signed an ante-nuptial agreement, stating that she would receive no more than $25,000 of her late husband’s estate. Louis immediately contested the will and swore to continue the legal battle for as long as it took to prevent the young widow from getting a share in the estate.⁸ Louis contended that the stocks administered by the Union Trust Company of New Haven should also form part of the estate to be inherited by Kingsley. A large legal team from Stamford represented Louis and Kingsley, including Samuel Fessenden, Hart & Keller, Homer Cummings and Clarence I. Reld. Mabel was represented by Goodwin Stoddard of Bridgeport.⁹

On 12 April 1901 the estate of Timothy H. Porter was finally settled. The remaining value of stocks from the Union Trust Company of $3,900 was paid into the estate.¹⁰ The existence of the ante-nuptial agreement denied Mabel any further claim on her late husband’s estate, though she had prospered greatly during her years of marriage. Mabel went to live in New York before joining her father in Talbot County, Maryland, where he had developed a large oyster business.¹¹ In 1906, Mabel paid $1,250 for Lambdin House, a modest one-and-a half-storey frame dwelling in Water Street, St Michaels, Maryland, where she continued to live.¹² Mabel had secured her financial future through her marriage and subsequently had no further contact with the Porter family.

The finalizing of his father’s will insured that Kingsley, now aged 18, became an enormously wealthy man. Finally he was free from the peculiarities of his father’s lifestyle, from the stress of legal battles and the shame of family scandal. Louis, as the eldest son, inherited the family home at Blachley Lodge that had been part of Louisa’s estate, as well as $10,000 that had been willed to him. Throughout their lives the brothers maintained a strong bond of unity and affection. When Louis married Miss Ellen Marion Hatch of New York, on 3 October 1901, Kingsley was best man.¹³ The newlyweds moved into Blachley Lodge to begin married life.

The effect on Louis after years of litigation against his father finally caught up with him. In December 1901 he became seriously ill with appendicitis,¹⁴ and an emergency operation had to be performed by Dr Bull of New York. Louis was then allowed to convalesce at home, under the care of doctors Bull, Tiffany and Hurlbut.¹⁵

Louis’s illness had seriously weakened him and he was unfit for some time to return to work. Although Kingsley was in his second year at Yale, he proposed that they take a cruise around the world so that Louis could recover his health. On 8 January 1902, Kingsley applied for a US passport, stating that he planned to return to the US in September. On his passport application, Kingsley stated that he was six feet one inch in height; he had blue eyes, light hair and a fair complexion; he had a high forehead, a long face, a small mouth and chin, and he possessed a Greek nose.¹⁶

At the age of 18, Kingsley possessed many advantages, including a strong, slender physique. His love of the outdoors was insatiable and he went on frequent hunting expeditions to Canada and Newfoundland.¹⁷He was shy and reserved with the look of a poet,¹⁸ but he was also friendly and modest which brought him a close circle of friends.¹⁹ For the handsome young millionaire with the keenest intellect and a congenial though sensitive disposition, the world was indeed his oyster.

On 22 January 1902, Kingsley and Louis boarded the twin-screw express SS Auguste Victoria in New York.²⁰ The luxury seventy-three-day world cruise to the Orient had recently been introduced by the Hamburg-American Line. The cruise itinerary included stops at Funchal (Madeira), Gibraltar, Granada and Malaga (Spain), Tangiers (Morocco), Algiers (Algeria), Genoa (Italy), Villefranche and Nice (France), Monte Carlo (Monaco), Malta, Alexandria, Cairo, Luxor and Assouan (Egypt), Beirut and Baalbek (Lebanon), Damascus (Syria), Jaffa (Palestine), Jerusalem, Constantinople (now Istanbul), the Bosphorus, the Black Sea, Piraeus and Athens (Greece), Taormina, Messina, Palermo, Naples and Genoa (Italy). The cruise was to return to New York from Genoa. However, the Porters continued their travels to India and the Far East.²¹ They re-entered the US via the West Coast and travelled across the Rockies, before reaching the East Coast.

Kingsley, now aged 19, must have been incurably infected with the yearning for travel and adventure after witnessing all the delights, tastes, sights and experiences that a world tour provided. It certainly opened him to the richness and diversity of art and culture and to the incredible marvels of nature across continents and oceans.

8. Arthur Kingsley Porter’s room at Yale College, photograph, c. 1904.

Harvard University Archives, HUG 1706.194.

Kingsley finally returned to Yale in September 1902 and continued his studies, graduating with a degree of Bachelor of Arts on 27 June 1904.²² Out of a total of 195 men who graduated that year, Kingsley was one of the twelve who received the highest award of philosophical oration.²³ This elite group also included William Pickens from Little Rock, Arkansas, an African-American who later became an author and civil-rights campaigner.²⁴ Overall, Kingsley finished fourth in his class.²⁵

Although Kingsley possessed a fortune, he immediately set about finding a suitable career. Men who had inherited their wealth from the old families of New England were reared with a work ethic that life was only meaningful if they had a vocation to nurture. This was unlike the ethos of rich European aristocrats or the young American nouveau riche who were happy to spend their lives indulging all the sensual pleasures that money could buy. It had always been his mother’s wish that Kingsley would study law and work in his brother’s firm. Finally, though, Kingsley had gained a positive legacy from his family and this great wealth allowed him to carve out a life of his own choosing. During the summer of 1904 he postponed a decision about further studies and instead sailed to France.²⁶

It was during his tour of Normandy that Kingsley experienced a mystical conversion at Coutances Cathedral.²⁷ While staring up at the Gothic turrets and superb ornamentation on the cathedral’s facade, Kingsley was enveloped in a shining light and fell into a trance, totally enraptured by the structure’s exquisite symmetry.²⁸ This mystical experience convinced the 21-year-old Kingsley Porter that his path lay in the study of architecture.²⁹

There is little doubt that Kingsley, after the extraordinary family misfortunes he had suffered, was ripe for spiritual transformation and in great need of a meaningful vocation. In architecture, Kingsley had found a marvellous escape from the cares and the ugliness of a chaotic world. The study of architecture meant he could revel in beauty, design and symmetry, each based on eternal principles. As with all great art, Kingsley could admire the romantic aspirations of the artist and the inner passion and spirit of the craftsman that had given the work its power. The simple truth was that Kingsley loved architecture: the way it made him feel when he visited a magnificent cathedral; the sense of freedom he found in travelling to foreign lands to explore ancient monuments; the joy he derived from imaging the lives of artists who crafted such glorious structures. All of these elements converged and clearly surfaced on that momentous day in Coutances.

9. Coutances Cathedral, France.

Stanley Parry.

On his return to New York, Kingsley enrolled at the Columbia Architectural School.³⁰ Initially he began studying beaux-arts with a view to becoming a practising architect but midway through the course he switched to the study of architectural history.³¹ While at Columbia he began researching medieval architecture. After graduating in 1906, Kingsley immediately set sail for Europe to continue his research of medieval architecture in France and Italy.³²

By December, Kingsley was back in New York. On 4 December 1906 he attended the wedding of Blakeman Quintard Meyer,³³ a friend from his days at Yale,³⁴ and on 6 February 1907 he celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday. Although he continued to remain on friendly terms with his old college mates, Kingsley was a serious, studious scholar who had little interest in gaiety or frivolity. His greatest excitement derived from travel abroad where he could indulge his fascination with the origins of stone monuments. He also loved going on frequent expeditions to the mountains and lakes, particularly the Adirondacks, where he could be alone to ponder and reflect.

Throughout 1907, Kingsley’s sole occupation was the research and writing of his mammoth book, entitled Medieval Architecture: Its Origins and Development.³⁵ Although he had little formal training to write such a book, he had a deep inner confidence and conviction that his personal travels, studies and observations would lead him to discover significant, previously unexplored medieval monuments.

The 1,000-page book was completed at Kingsley’s apartment at 320 Central Park West, New York City, on 24 September 1908.³⁶ In the preface, Kingsley stated that Medieval Architecture was written for the general reader who had little or no training in architecture. Its main purpose was to inform travellers who visited these masterpieces in Europe to gain the greatest appreciation and enjoyment of Gothic architecture. Although Kingsley was largely self-taught and inexperienced, he still managed to create the first book on medieval architecture written by an American.³⁷ Quite simply, it was an immense achievement. The bibliographies were testament to the staggering breadth and depth of the reading he had undertaken before attempting this mammoth work.³⁸

10. Kingsley aged 25 in 1908.

Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum Archives. Goodyear Archival Collection. General correspondence (1.1.066): Porter (1910). Location unknown, 1908.

Although the book mainly dealt with the Gothic architecture of France, it also encompassed a history of architecture from Greek and Roman times. Kingsley was just 26 years old when the book was published in two volumes in 1909, by Baker & Taylor of New York. It contained over 300 illustrations that Kingsley had commissioned. The work was considered groundbreaking, as Kingsley used documents to ascribe dates to monuments as the means for tracing the evolution of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. This revolutionized the rather careless method employed by previous researchers, of deducing the chronology of development from conjectured theories.³⁹

To attempt such an enormous work at a young age shows an inner confidence in his research, analytical and literary abilities. His writing style was clear and fluid, displaying an incredible knowledge of his chosen subject but also showing a deep passion for the planning, construction and ornamentation of architectural wonders, including Roman temples, Gothic cathedrals and Norman towers. The actual writing of the book must have taken him many thousands of hours, spent alone at his desk, constantly refining and editing every sentence.

The work also shows Kingsley’s love for medieval monuments and, in particular, the mystical delight he derived from the beauty of a Gothic cathedral that could transport him to another realm:

But the Gothic Cathedral alone possesses the power to lift the mind entirely from the cares and thoughts of the world, de materialibus ad immaterialia transferendo, the power to call forth within the soul a more than mortal joy, until for the moment the material world is forgotten, and the mind is carried captive to that strange shore of the universe which is more of the mould of Heaven than of Earth.⁴⁰

The book was widely acclaimed. A reviewer for The Sun (New York) described the work as a ‘stupendous undertaking. The bibliography of the subjects of the first volumes embraces 2,500 separate entries and is in itself a remarkable contribution to the study of a single art.’⁴¹

According to The Washington Times, ‘For six years, Mr Porter, who is a young man, has constantly applied himself to the production of this monumental history of architecture, making several Asiatic and European trips required by the book since his graduation from Yale and working on the subject daily for years.’⁴²

Even after his great success, Kingsley had no time to rest. He travelled to Italy during the winter of 1908, spending January 1909 in Naples.⁴³Here he conducted further research into Italian architecture that would form the basis of his second book, The Construction of Lombard and Gothic Vaults. At this stage of his career Kingsley was not affiliated with any university. He must have incurred enormous expense in conducting independent research in Europe but his considerable wealth allowed him to pursue any quest that captured his interest. Kingsley had found an area in which he excelled and which provided him with meaning and purpose. He was therefore more than content to throw himself, body and soul, into the study of his chosen subject.

Kingsley needed no justification for spending money in the pursuit of art. In fact, he abhorred art that was made for commercial reasons. In later writings he made this abundantly clear:

There are two kinds of architecture, as there are two kinds of painting, of sculpture, and of literature. One is artistic, created for the joy of bringing into the world a beautiful thing – material compensation may or may not be given, but is secondary; the other is commercial, made primarily for expediency, for money, for fame. Roman art is of the commercial variety... They were opportunist structures, lacking intellectual and emotional content.⁴⁴

When it came to commercialism in art, Kingsley took a high moral stand. There was no allowance made for struggling artists who had to feed themselves and their families. Even in Kingsley’s time, there were very few artists who could indulge their art to their heart’s content. Poverty would certainly concentrate the mind to dwell on more physical and mundane matters. Whatever emotional turmoil that Kingsley had so far faced in his life, the lack of finance had never been a factor.

For Kingsley, the joy and delight he experienced when researching ancient monuments in Rome was adequate compensation. His descriptions of his Roman travels after the publication of Medieval Architecture reveal a man who has indeed found a vocation that is all-consuming: ‘the opportunity has come to linger long in Rome; to draw and photograph among the ruins of the Agro, to poetize with Carducci on the Aventine or in the Baths of Caracalla. Often as I have stood in the august presence of the Roman Forum, it has never been without emotion.’⁴⁵

While in Italy, Kingsley’s good friend and mentor William Henry Goodyear, the curator of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, wrote to him, advising him to take accurate photographs of the churches and monuments he visited: ‘In my own experience, I have often undervalued the great importance of photographic record and have very frequently been obliged, on account of necessary haste, to omit observations which have involved sometimes revisiting a monument at great cost in some other year, and on many occasions I have never been able to make good.’⁴⁶

Goodyear’s advice was to stand Kingsley in good stead over his many years of productive research. He quickly became very proficient as a photographer and never went anywhere without his camera. From 1909 onwards, Kingsley no longer needed to buy book illustrations, as he was quite capable of producing his own photographic images.

In April 1909, at the age of 26, Kingsley was elected a member of the prestigious Société Française d’Archéologie, a rare honour for an American scholar. His election was in honour of his unique contribution to the study of medieval architecture.⁴⁷ During the remainder of 1909 and the whole of 1910, Kingsley continued his studies of Lombard architecture.

The Construction of Lombard and Gothic Vaults was completed in 1911 and published by Yale University Press. In this work, Kingsley discovered the earliest examples of rib vaults to have been created in Lombardy, in northern Italy. He then logically described the vault’s evolution from Roman architecture to French Gothic.⁴⁸ In the opening chapter Kingsley summarized his findings: ‘Rib vaults therefore were invented in Lombardy as a simple device to economize wood. They were adopted by the French builders for the same purpose. The same desire to dispense with temporary wooden substructures governed the development of architecture during the entire transitional period, and eventually lead to the birth of Gothic.’⁴⁹

In the decade following his father’s death, Kingsley had largely reversed the scandal and public lampooning of his family. Arthur Kingsley Porter had established himself as a brilliant scholar, an author of international acclaim and an authority on medieval architecture. Having immense wealth at his disposal and being surrounded by like-minded friends in New York, Kingsley was now living the good life. There was just one final element to be fitted into place: it was time for Kingsley to fall in love.