Archives West Finding Aid

Carl Freylinghuysen Gould (1873-1939), a prominent Seattle architect. Gould designed over 20 buildings on the University of Washington campus, including the Henry Suzzallo library. He also designed the Seattle Asian Art Museum (previously the Seattle Art Museum), the Marine Hospital (now the headquarters of Amazon.com), and many other notable structures in the Puget Sound area.

Carl F. Gould was born in New York City into a prominent New York family. He graduated from Philips Exeter Academy in 1894 and from Harvard University with an A.B. in 1898. From 1898 to 1903 he studied architecture and fine art at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris.

On his return to the United States, Gould worked for a number of years as a draughtsman in several architectural firms, and in 1906 formed the partnership firm Carpenter, Blair and Gould in New York City. Perhaps due in part to three brothers-in-law all practicing architecture in New York (Walter Blair, Edward York, and Dana Swan), in 1908 Gould moved to Seattle on an impulse. He started out in Seattle as a draughtsman, but in 1914 joined with Charles H. Bebb to form the architectural firm Bebb & Gould.

In 1913 Gould was asked to lecture on architecture at the University of Washington, an opportunity that eventually led him to establish the University’s Department of Architecture in 1914. Gould served as professor and chair of the department until 1926, while at the same time practicing professionally with Bebb & Gould.

Gould was a founding member of the Seattle City Planning Commission, the Seattle Fine Arts Society, and the Seattle Art Institute, as well as being active in numerous other architectural and civic organizations. He also belonged to the Rainier and University clubs and was counted among the prominent citizens of Seattle. Bebb & Gould designed the 1920s addition to the Rainier Club, as well as homes for many of Seattle’s affluent families.

Both of Gould’s parents claimed descent from prominent New York families. His father, Charles Judson Gould, was a successful New York merchant and financier and his mother, Annie Laurie Westbrook Gould, held property in the city that had passed through her family for two hundred years. Carl Gould and his six siblings (five sisters and a brother) grew up in the Gould’s New York City apartment, and Suncliff, their country home in Tarrytown. The Gould children were educated in leading New England schools, and all accompanied their parents on European trips, where their appreciation for art and architecture was fostered. Carl’s mother was an avid arts patron and collected the works of relatively unknown (at the time) young artists, such as Winslow Homer and Rockwell Kent. Appreciation for the arts has pervaded the Gould family through generations; among other family members, Anne Hauberg, nee Anne Westbrook Gould, granddaughter and namesake of Carl’s mother, has followed in her grandmother’s footsteps and been an important Seattle arts patron.

Gould married Dorothy Wheaton Fay (1890-1976) in 1915, and together they had three children: Carl, Jr. (1916-1992), Anne (1917-), and John (1925-). All three children remained in the Seattle area. Carl, Jr., practiced architecture and John became a research engineer. The Goulds divided their time between Topsfield, their summer home on Bainbridge Island (built in 1915 and designed by Gould), and the Gould home at 1058 East Lynn Street, built in 1921 and also designed by Gould.