Edward Durell Stone - Early Life

Early Life

Stone was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a small college town in the northwest corner of the state. His family, early settlers of the area, owned a prosperous dry goods store. One of his childhood friends was J. William Fulbright, the future United States Senator from Arkansas and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Stone and Fulbright remained friends throughout their lives. Stone attended the University of Arkansas, where his interest in architecture was encouraged by the chairman of the art department. His older brother, James Hicks Stone (1886–1928), was already a practicing architect in Boston, Massachusetts, and James encouraged his younger brother to join him there. While in Boston, Stone attended the Boston Architectural Club (now Boston Architectural College), Harvard University, and MIT, but he never received a degree. While studying, Stone also apprenticed in the offices of Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch and Abbott, H. H. Richardson’s successor firm. Henry R. Shepley, one of the firm’s senior partners, mentored Stone while he was in Boston and assisted him throughout his career.

While studying in Massachusetts, he won the prestigious Rotch Travelling Fellowship (now called the Rotch Travelling Scholarship), which afforded him the opportunity to travel throughout Europe and North Africa on a two year stipend. Other winners of the Fellowship include the architects Ralph Walker (of Vorhees, Gmelin and Walker), Louis Skidmore (of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill), Wallace K. Harrison (of Harrison and Abramovitz) and Gordon Bunshaft (also of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill). During his travels, Stone maintained sketchbooks and produced exquisite watercolor drawings in the Beaux-Arts style. He also visited buildings by some of the leading modernist architects of the day, works which would influence his early practice. While in Venice, Stone met and courted Orlean Vandiver of Montgomery, Alabama. They would marry in New York City in 1930.