Hermann V. von Holst

Who was Hermann V. von Holst?

Hermann V. von Holst was an American architect practicing in Chicago, Illinois, and Boca Raton, Florida, from the 1890s through the 1940s, best remembered for agreeing to take on the responsibility of heading up Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural practice when Wright went off to Europe with Mamah Cheney in 1909.

Von Holst was born in Freiburg, Germany, on June 17, 1874, the son of the eminent historian Hermann Eduard von Holst and Hoboken, New Jersey, native Annie Isabelle Hatt, who were married on April 23, 1872, in New York City. The von Holsts lived in Germany with visits to the United States until they emigrated from Germany to Chicago in 1891, where von Holst, Sr., became head of the department of history at the University of Chicago.