Jonathan L. Foote

Who is Jonathan L. Foote?

Jonathan L. Foote, or Jonathan Lipe Foote, is an American architect whose work is associated with the preservation movement in the U.S.

Foote was born in London in 1935, and is the second son of U.S. Col. Ray Palmer Foote and Rosann Lipe Foote Smith. He is a direct descendant of Elizabeth Deming and Nathaniel Foote, who settled Wethersfield, Connecticut, in 1636. He attended Phillips Academy and Yale University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1958. In 1959 he attended the Rhode Island School of Design, and in 1964 he received a Bachelor of Architecture and a Masters of Architecture from The Yale University School of Architecture.

Although the idea of historic preservation traces back at least to the 1920s, Foote is primarily linked to its greater urgency and wider acceptance following the demolition of New York City's Pennsylvania Station in 1964. He was an early proponent of historic renovation, regional design, and historic preservation for private and public works throughout rural and urban parts of New England during the 1960s. He is more broadly noted in the American Northwest for a large variety of projects that date back to the 1970s.