Willis Franklin Denny II, Architect

The architect of Rhodes Hall was Willis F. Denny II (1874-1905), a native of Louisville, Georgia, who had first come to Atlanta in the late 1880's to attend private school. While studying architecture at Cornell in 1892, Denny designed his first building, the Louisville Baptist Church. After a brief period in Macon, he moved to Atlanta in 1894 and worked as a draftsman with the prominent Atlanta firm of Bruce and Morgan. The following year he married and in 1897 launched his formal career with offices in Atlanta, Macon, and briefly in Augusta. About that time he built his own house on Moreland Avenue and four or five houses in Inman Park, as well as the Inman Park Methodist Church (1897). Perhaps his most well-known house, besides Rhodes Hall, is the Kriegshaber house (1900) at 292 Moreland Avenue. In 1902, he drew up plans for Rhodes' castle on Peachtree.

Denny was responsible for a number of other significant buildings during his brief 8-year career, including the Bass Dry Goods Store (1899), the Hebrew Synagogue (1901, demolished), St. Mark's Methodist Church (1902-03), the First Methodist Church (1903), the Piedmont Hotel (1902, demolished 1966), the Majestic Hotel (1900, demolished 1928), and the Dubignon/King house (1900, demolished 1954). Called the "leading residential architect" of turn-of-the-century Atlanta, he also designed two apartment buildings in the Fairlie-Poplar district, neither of which survives. He designed a number of buildings in other parts of this state, Alabama, and Tennessee, including the Jefferson County Courthouse in his hometown of Louisville. Considered one of the finest regional architects of his era, Denny trained several young architects, including Neel Reid in 1904, before his untimely death, caused by pneumonia in 1905 at the age of 31.

Read More about Rhodes Hall architecture at the City of Atlanta Urban Design Commission site. Rhodes Hall is a designated Atlanta Urban Design property.

Learn about Amos Giles Rhodes, owner of Rhodes Hall.
Back to Rhodes Hall History.