Clinton Briggs Ripley


Clinton Briggs Ripley was an American architect active in Honolulu, Hawaii, from the 1890s until the 1920s.
Ripley was born in Peru, Maine. In 1871, he began his career in Chattanooga, Tennessee, forming Ripley & Co. with William K. Ripley. After living in Nashville, he moved to Los Angeles until settling in Hawaii around 1890.
Ripley became Commissioner of Patents in 1894, then formed a partnership with a junior but well-connected local architect, Charles William Dickey, during the peak of the building boom in 1896-1900. During the downturn that followed, he briefly headed the Concrete Construction Company, then looked for work elsewhere before settling back in Honolulu in 1910 in partnership first with Arthur L. Reynolds, and then with Louis E. Davis from 1913 until his death.
His early work in Downtown Honolulu was in the then popular Richardsonian Romanesque style, as in the old Central Fire Station, the Bishop Estate Building on Merchant Street, the Irwin Block on Nuuanu Street, and Progress Block on Fort Street, the last now occupied by Hawaii Pacific University. Among his other notable buildings were the H.P. Baldwin Home and Hawaii Hall for the new University of Hawaii.
He died in Oakland, California on his 73rd birthday.

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