Nathan Kelley
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Nathan Kelley (1808-02-26 in Warren County, Ohio - 1871-11-20 in Columbus, Ohio) was a United States architect and builder. He was a prolific architect whose designs would come to dominate the cityscape of Columbus, Ohio at the middle of the 19th century.
Little personal information exists for Kelley before he began a mojor commission in 1835 for the Central Ohio Lunatic Asylum, when he was 27 years of age. At about the same time, he woul dalso be named as (construction) superintendent of the State school for the Blind. In the 1840s city directories list him as surveyor and engineer for the City of Columbus.
His most significant works are the interior space and mechanical systems of the Ohio Statehouse. This massive government building was erected between 1839 and 1861, with Kelley serving as one of four principal architects between 1854 and 1858. As he began the project, Kelley basically began from scratch, as his predecessors had taken all plans and working drawings away with them.Walls and some flooring were in place, and first steps in erecting iron trusses for the roof had begun. Seeing the building had no provision for heating or ventilation, Kelley designed an innovative steam heating system that was highly effective, at a time when central heating was a rare and expensive luxury.He was responsible for the finishing touches on the exterior of the building as well as the design and engineering of most of the interior spaces. Kelley was forced off the project after repeated conflicts with the commission that oversaw the work for the state government. The major source of controversy arose from Kelley's florid and elegant plasterwork and high level of ornamentation, which reflects the use of Classical motifs combined with the decorative sensibilities of the Victorian era, and contrasted sharpley with the restrained Greek Revival exterior of the structure. Kelley envisioned a highly decorated interior, in accord with the elegance and noble purpose of the building itself and the stature of such a place in developing state. He believed if the work was done in the "bare and bald" style which the government commission overseeing the work favored, it would meet with little acceptance and have to soon be done over at great cost and effort. The chambers used by the House and Sente are basically as Kelley pictured them, though with soem modern additions and alteration of layout, but with decorative scheme intact. They give some indication of what he woul dhave done as far as finishes in teh central Rotunda, which he planned to be the most ornate and opulant space in the building. He made further recommendations that monumental paitings or murals be installed in the Rotunda ( the panels intended for this purpose were never hung with art as he wished)and hoped that the government "would see fit to honor the nation's great general" (Washington)with a statue in the Rotunda, which also never came to pass.
In Columbus, Kelley would also be responsible for a State School for the Blind,the Franklin County (Ohio)Court House, many schools and churches, commercial buildings, and a variety of private residences. Immediately after his dismissal from the Statehouse project, he left the Columbus area and worked in southwest Ohio and in Kentucky, where he was responsible for several state institutional hospitals.
In his long career,Kelley combined a tenacious ability to champion his own personal artistic choices with a willingness to recognize changes in popular taste and fashion. In his obituary in the Columbus Statesman newspaper, his work was called "of the substantial kind,with a most desirable absance of that confusion of styles which condems so man expensive buildings".
Many of Kelley's buildings in Columbus and other locations did not survive as growth and development overtook them. His life and career are an example of how someone well regarded and respected in his own time can come to be almost anonymous a century after his death. No image of the man himself exists and his grave in Greenlawn Cemetery is unmarked.
As is typical of the time period, there was little consistency in the spelling of personal names. In various sources, it is spelled either Kelley or Kelly. Burial records from Greenlawn Cemetery, and his grandfather’s biography from an early history of Warren County have it as Kelley, while his obituary in a Columbus newspaper and his own signature on working drawings omit the final ‘e’ and spell the name Kelly. In some sources he is also known as N.B. Kelley. He is named for his paternal grandfather Nathan Kelley (1760-1845)a very early settler in Warren County who served the area as justice of the peace, appeals court judge and State Representative.
