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Richard Howland; Promoted Art, Architectural Preservation
Richard Howland, shown chatting with Marjorie Merriweather Post at a 1957 benefit gala, was the National Trust for Historic Preservation's first president. He also oversaw the restoration of the 19th-century Smithsonian Building.
(By Robert Striar)
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From the 1930s to the 1970s, he contributed to classical archaeology and scholarship in excavations at Athens and Corinth for the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. In 1958, he published "Greek Lamps and Their Survivals."
A savvy negotiator, Dr. Howland arranged in 1974 for the gift of Clara Woolie Mayer's New York City home together with an endowment of $50,00 to serve as headquarters for the American School in the United States. Some years later, he enabled the school to sell that property for $6 million to aid its relocation to Princeton, N.J.
Dr. Howland also helped restore and adapt the DACOR Bacon House on F Street NW after advising Virginia Murray Bacon, the wife of Rep. Robert Low Bacon, on the 1980 donation of her house to the Bacon House Foundation.
His endeavors extended throughout the world. In the 1960s, he headed a UNESCO mission to Ethiopia to help organize the preservation of its ancient monuments and artistic treasures and undertook a similar mission to Nepal on behalf of the trustees of the John D. Rockefeller III Fund regarding the conservation of historic structures in the Kathmandu Valley.
Dr. Howland founded and led several organizations. In 1938, he founded the Society for the Preservation of Greek Antiquities and was a co-founder in 1965 of the Preservation Roundtable in Washington. He was a Franklin Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London and a trustee of the Archaeological Institute of America.
As president of the Washington branch of the English Speaking Union, he was instrumental in arranging the sculpting and erection of the statue to Winston Churchill in front of the British Embassy. He also once hosted a luncheon for Churchill's granddaughter.
Dr. Howland, who had a dry sense of humor and was a stickler for punctuality, often hosted affairs that brought people from various interests together, said Wilton Dillon, senior scholar emeritus with the Smithsonian Institution, who had worked with Dr. Howland. "He really was a fascinating human being who used his positions in these various organizations to have people meet each other for good causes," Dillon said.
Dr. Howland's marriage to Caroline Marie Bullard ended in divorce.
He leaves no immediate survivors.
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