William Channing Whitney

Who was William Channing Whitney?

William Ellery Channing Whitney was an American architect who practiced in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Born in Harvard, Massachusetts, the son of Benjamin F. Whitney, he was educated at Lawrence Academy at Groton, Massachusetts, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his B.S. from the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1872. After working in the Boston architectural office of William Ralph Emerson and Carl Fehmer for several years, he moved to Minneapolis in 1877-78, where he formed an architectural partnership with James C. Plant, 1879-85. He married Alma C. Walker on 6 October 1881 In 1885 he began to practice on his own and soon gained a reputation among the manufacturing and milling elite for his residential designs; he built residences for Frank Peavey, J.F. Bell, William Dunwoody and others. The house he built in St. Paul for Horace Hills Irvine, 1911–12, is now the Minnesota Governor's Residence.

He is credited with introducing neo-Georgian architecture to Minneapolis, in his design for the William J. Hinkle House.