By Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 3, 2006
Richard Hubbard Howland, 96, an eminent architectural and art historian who served as president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the late 1950s, died of pneumonia Oct. 24 at his home in Washington.
Dr. Howland, a debonair socialite as well as dedicated scholar, was a man of many facets. He was a classical archaeologist, art history professor, author, founder of learned societies and a special assistant at the Smithsonian Institution.
He moved to Washington in 1956 to accept the new post of president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He traveled throughout the country, promoting the National Trust's mission. At the request of philanthropist Paul Mellon, Dr. Howland devised a plan for the future direction of the nonprofit National Trust that resulted in a $1 million gift by Mellon.
Richard Moe, current president of the National Trust, said Dr. Howland was "one of the giants who really built the institution in its early days."
"He was a consummate gentleman of the old school, a wonderful raconteur and, especially, a dedicated and effective leader," Moe said.
In 1960, Dr. Howland became chairman of the department of civil history at the Smithsonian's Museum of History and Technology. He later was appointed special assistant to Secretary S. Dillon Ripley and oversaw the restoration of the 19th-century Smithsonian Building. He also established a collection of Victorian furnishings for the Smithsonian Castle.
With his encouragement, the Countess Mona Bismarck provided the National Museum of American History with some of her fabled wardrobe for its costume collection.
An engaging lecturer, Dr. Howland inaugurated and led Smithsonian study tours abroad with an emphasis on the classical and archaeological world of Greece and Rome. He retired from the Smithsonian in 1985.
A former Baltimore resident, he co-wrote with art scholar Eleanor P. Spencer "The Architecture of Baltimore" in 1953. An updated version was published in 2004 with a foreword by Dr. Howland.
"In the fifty years since our book was published, historical preservation has been legally mandated at national, state and local levels. We may be thankful for the change," he wrote.
Dr. Howland, a native of Providence, R.I., graduated from Brown University in 1931. He received a master's degree in art history from Harvard University in 1933 and a doctorate in classical archaeology from Johns Hopkins University in 1946.
He taught art history, first at Wellesley College from 1939 to 1952, then at Johns Hopkins from 1947 to 1956, where he founded and chaired the department of art history. During World War II, he was a section chief in the Office of Strategic Services in Washington and elsewhere.
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.