AIA CLE Gets an Exclusive Tour at The D. H Ellison Company in Ohio City

Last night’s Body of Work began, appropriately, with the building itself.

From Lorain Avenue, 2002 West 41st Street presents itself as a simple Italianate building, with storefront windows at the sidewalk and a second story rising above the corner. But walk around back, down the brick-paved alley, and the experience begins to change. A small yard, enclosed by iron fencing and shaded by three trees, feels unexpectedly quiet and intimate. There, the rear elevation is marked by a stately portico with Tuscan columns. Above the door, a transom quietly announces: The D. H. Ellison Co., 2002 W. 41st Street.

Step through that door and you are transported somewhere else, to what seems like another time and place. A time filled with beauty and detail and a sense of permanence.

It was like entering the townhome of a 19th-century explorer who had brought pieces of the world back with him. Statuary, drawings, maps, globes, heritage area rugs, architectural fragments and curious objects reveal themselves from room to room. Moldings and casings frame each passage. The library, at the top of the stairs, is lined on three sides with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with hundreds of volumes, while a procession of columns defines the hallway beside it open to the stairs. Above, a coffered skylight washes the room with soft light.

Then there is the drafting studio, where he told the story of his life and work. Surrounded by drawings, old drafting tables, books and other tools of the profession, David traced a path from his architectural education at Cooper Union in New York through his early career and, ultimately, the establishment of The D. H. Ellison Co. in 1998. His work may draw deeply from classical architecture, historic buildings and familiar forms, but, as David explained, it is not an attempt to recreate the past. It is architecture, very much of the present, using precedent, proportion, craft and an understanding of context to create places that feel beautiful, useful and deeply familiar.

Perhaps that is what made the evening itself feel so natural.

The light throughout the studio was warm and glowing. People gathered in rooms that felt comfortable enough to encourage conversation, meeting one another for the first time or catching up with old friends. Before and after David’s talk, people wandered through the studio, looked at drawings and books, lingered over conversations, and enjoyed food from Le Petit Triangle, Prosecco and Stella Artois, some of David’s favorites.

And when the evening was over, we stepped back through the door, across the portico, and over the threshold back into the 21st century.

But I think we carried a little of David’s world back out with us: its richness, curiosity, beauty, craft and belief that the things we make matter. There are few better ways to return to the work we do than feeling inspired and uplifted by the work, the place, and the life of another architect.

Thank you to everyone who attended, I hope a little of the beauty still lingers with you.