Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison (1872–1938) was a U.S. architect. He was born in New York City in 1872 and died in New York in 1938.

Murchison graduated from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 in 1894 and from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...

 in Paris, France, in 1900. Two years later, he opened an office in New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 where his first major commissions were for railroad stations for the Pennsylvania Railroad

Pennsylvania Railroad

The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy", the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....

 company. Among the stations he designed are the Delaware Lackawanna Station, Hoboken, NJ;
both the Lackawanna Terminal and the Lehigh Terminal, Buffalo, NY, and Pennsylvania Station, Baltimore, MD.

He also designed:

• New Union Station, Jacksonville, FL.
• Havana Central Railroad Station
• Lackawanna Station, Scranton, PA (now Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel)
• Johnstown, PA, Station
• LIRR Station, Jamaica, NY.
• US Marine Hospital, Staten Island, NY
• The original Dunes Club, Narragansett, RI. (Only the gatehouse remains after the 1938 hurricane.)
• Sands Point Bath Club, East Egg, LI (destroyed by fire in 1986)
• West Side Tennis Club, Forest Hills, NY
• New Colonial Hotel, Nassau
• First National Bank Building, Hoboken, NJ
• The Murchison Building, Wilmington, NC
• Co-op Apartments, 39 E. 79th St., NY.
• Beaux Arts Apartments, 310 E. 44th St., NY
• The Tully House (Residence), Mill Neck, NY
• Luola Chapel, built at Orton Plantation in Brunswick, NC, in memory of his sister who died in 1916. He also added wings to the main house.
• Summer Residences, Narragansett, RI

In New York, he was well known as one of the founders of the Beaux Arts Balls, elaborate costume parties benefiting
architects who had fallen on hard times. He also was a founder of the Mendelsohn Glee Club. He lived in the Beaux Arts Apartments, which he designed, at 310 E. 44th St.

Murchison died suddenly, at 11:45 p.m. on Dec. 15, 1938, "as he was emerging from the I.R.T. station in Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central Terminal —often incorrectly called Grand Central Station, or shortened to simply Grand Central—is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...

," the New York Times reported.

At the time of his death, he had started work on a new Dunes Club to replace the one destroyed a few months
earlier. He was survived by his widow, Aurelie de Mauriac Murchison and two daughters, Mrs. Hays Browning and Mrs. Edoard deWardener.

Buildings

Name	Location	Date	Built for	Current use	Image
Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Station Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel The Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel, built as the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Station, is a neo-classical building in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It was built as a train station and office building in 1908; closed in 1970; listed on the U.S...	Scranton, Pennsylvania	1908	Lackawanna Railroad	Hotel
Beaux Arts Apartments	310 E. 44th St., New York	1929-1930	Apartments
U.S. Marine Hospital	Staten Island, NY
Havana Central railway station Havana Central railway station Havana Central , is the main railway terminal in Havana and the largest railway station in Cuba, is the hub of the rail system in the country. Today, the Central Station serves for the arrival and departure of national and divisional commuter trains, and is home to the national railway company,...	Havana, Cuba	1912	Congress of Cuba	Railroad station
Munson Steamship Lines Building	1 Wall Street Court, New York City	1906	Munson Steamship Company Munson Line The Munson Steamship Line, frequently shortened to the Munson Line, was an American steamship company that operated in the Atlantic Ocean primarily between U.S. ports and ports in the Caribbean and South America...	Co-op (converted in 2003)
Train station	Johnstown, Pennsylvania Johnstown, Pennsylvania Johnstown is a city in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States, west-southwest of Altoona, Pennsylvania and east of Pittsburgh. The population was 20,978 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Cambria County...	1916
Pennsylvania Station Pennsylvania Station (Baltimore) Pennsylvania Station is the main train station in Baltimore, Maryland. Designed by New York architect Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison , it was constructed in 1911 in the Beaux-Arts style of architecture for the Pennsylvania Railroad. It is located at 1515 N...	Baltimore, Maryland	1911	Pennsylvania Railroad

Sources