Marcus Tullius Reynolds (1869-1937) [Section 17 Lot 1]
Well known Albany architect
Marcus Reynolds was born on August 20, 1869, in Great Barrington, MA to Catherine Maley Cuyler and Dexter Reynold, a lawyer, inventor, and close friend to Chester Arthur. His mother is a descended of Hendrick and Anna Schepmoes Cuyler who came to New Netherlands in 1650, moving in Albany in 1664. His paternal grandfather was president of several railroads which later merged to become part of New York Central.
With the death of his mother in 1875, he and his older brother, Cuyler, were sent to live with his paternal aunt, Laura, widow to Bayard Van Rensselaer. As a child, Marcus attended Miss Gaylord’s Boarding School in Catskill, Albany Academy, and St. Paul’s School in Concord New Hampshire. He received his MA from William’s College in Williamstown, Massachusetts and later to Columbia University to study architecture graduating in 1893.
Upon graduation from Columbia, Marcus returned to Albany establishing his own company. His first commission of importance was three-row houses on State Street near the corner of Willett Street. These homes, done for his Van Rensselaer cousins, done in an Italian Renaissance palazzo style. Before this commission, he moved the Van Rensselaer Manor House to Williams College where it becomes the Sigma Phi Fraternity House. However, the building was destroyed in the 1970s.
He designed many townhouses and country homes including the Lansing House at 295 State Street, Ryder Apartments and the country home for William Barnes, Jr. which was used as a chapel for the University at Albany before it burned down in the 1980s.
Notable buildings in Albany include the National Savings Bank (Albany’s first sky scrapper), the Municipal Gas Company Building, William S. Hackett Junior High, Fire House #4 ( Pictured at Right), Albany City Savings Bank, United Traction Co. Building Public School #4 , School, and the Pruyn Library. Both the Fire House and the Pruyn Library were done in the Dutch Revival, paying homage to the city’s heritage.
His most recognizable building within Albany is the Delaware and Hudson Railroad Company Building, which is currently used by the SUNY Administration on Broadway. Flemish Gothic in design it is decorated with beaver, coat of arm of early Dutch settlers and an eight-foot replica of Henry Hudson’s Half Moon. One of his notable buildings outside of Albany include the grounds and the building of the Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga Springs State Park.
Reynolds lived in Albany the rest of his life and died of appendicitis on March 18, 1937; he was 67 years old. He is buried in the Renyolds family plot. He designed numerous monuments within the cemetery. He was commissioned to design the Superintendent House, known as the Reynold’s House located off Cemetery Avenue. Additionally, he designed the monument for sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer; Palmer’s son landscape artist Walter Laurent Palmer; cinerarium for the remains of William Dalton who was the chief engineer of American Locomotive Company (ALCO); Hamilton Celtic Cross commissioned by Jesse Walker and Andrew Hamilton for their seven-year-old son.