Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Among the Architects, by Derham Groves

Selections of Student Work

Slide 1 House for Jonas Oldacre Designed by Tarna Schmidt
Slide 2 House for Irene Adler Designed by Katie Shinkfield
Slide 3 House for Nathan Garrideb Designed by Martin Kluger
Slide 4 House for Peter Carey Designed by Geoffrey Wong
Slide 5 House for Peter Carey Designed by Josephine Fu
Slide 6 House for Peter Carey Designed by Yvonne Yuen
Slide 7 House for Jonas Oldacre Designed by Henry Wong
Slide 8 House for Peter Carey Designed by Noha Khalaf
Slide 9 House for Jonas Oldacre Designed by Jackson Hung
Slide 10 House for Peter Carey Designed by Jimmy Thongthai
Slide 11 House for Irene Adler Designed by Tom Mckenzie
Slide 12 House for Peter Carey Designed by Michael Roper
 

Students and Staff

Some Architectural References From The Universal Sherlock Holmes

About the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota

'I thought it as well,' said Holmes, as we climbed the stile, 'that this fellow should think we had come here as architects … It may stop his gossip.'

Due perhaps to his father's influence, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle seemed to have a close affinity with architects throughout his life: For example, in The Adventures of Conan Doyle (1976), biographer Charles Higham described how effortlessly Doyle briefed an architect to design 'Undershaw,' his house at Hindhead in Surrey: '[Doyle] took a train to Hindhead, made exhaustive inquiries, and bought some acreage with a wonderful view across purple heather and gorse. He rushed across to Southsea to hire an architect – a spiritualist, William Ball, whom he had known during his struggling days there – took him back to Hindhead, [and] enthusiastically drew up a complete set of sketches and plans on the spot …'

But far more significantly, in his autobiography, Memories and Adventures (1924), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle movingly described his own literary output in architectural terms: 'When an author is in failing health and has passed his seventieth year he feels, as he surveys the line of his works, like some architect or builder who, having laboured long to complete his edifice, finally stands back to survey it in its entirety. I can only hope to add some little attic or cupola here or there. It is a modest enough structure, no doubt, and yet as I survey it I feel that I could do no better and that any powers which Providence has given me have found their full expression.'

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was brilliant at inventing houses which truly reflected the personalities of the characters who inhabited them: In the Sherlock Holmes adventure, 'The Speckled Band,' for example, where else but in a house 'of lichen-blotched stone, with … two curving wings, like the claws of a crab' would somebody as wicked as Dr. Grimesby Roylott live? What's more, Doyle succeeded in hitting the mark like this time and again. In light of Sherlock Holmes' comment in 'The Greek Interpreter' (1893), 'Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms,' one wonders to what extent was Doyle's architectural ability – albeit expressed in words instead of bricks and mortar – due to the fact that his father was an architect?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'virtual architecture' was often inspired by real places familiar to the author. A good example is the nautical-style retreat which belonged to Peter Carey, the drunken and violent retired captain of the steam-sealer, 'Sea Unicorn,' who was brutally stabbed to death with a harpoon by a former shipmate in the Sherlock Holmes adventure, 'Black Peter' (1904). Stanley Hopkins, 'a young police inspector for whose future Holmes had high hopes,' described the unusual building to Holmes' faithful companion, Dr. Watson: '[Carey] had built himself a wooden outhouse – he always called it "the cabin" – a few hundred yards from his house, and it was here that he slept every night. It was a little, single-roomed hut, sixteen feet by ten. He kept the key in his pocket, made his own bed, cleaned it himself, and allowed no other foot to cross the threshold … He had called it a cabin, and a cabin it was, sure enough, for you would have thought that you were in a ship. There was a bunk at one end, a sea-chest, maps and charts, a picture of the "Sea Unicorn," a line of log-books on a shelf, all exactly as one would expect to find it in a captain's room.'

Carey's cabin was most likely based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's memories of the captain's cabin on board the steam-whaler, 'Hope.' For seven months in 1880, Doyle served as the ship's surgeon, and it appears that much of his time was spent conversing with the captain, John Gray, in the captain's cabin. In his autobiography Doyle wrote: 'I speedily found that the chief duty of the surgeon was to be the companion of the captain, who is cut off by the etiquette of the trade from anything but very brief and technical talks with his other officers.' Interestingly, three years after the publication of 'Black Peter' in The Strand Magazine, Doyle bought 'Windlesham,' a handsome estate in Sussex, and in the pursuit of some peace and quiet in which to write, it seems that he took a leaf out of Peter Carey's book: In A Baker Street Dozen (1987), Dame Jean Conan Doyle, the author's daughter, stated that Sir Arthur 'always wrote in his study or in a small hut he built in a field at our Sussex home, where he was never disturbed.' [My italics.]

A truly successful building, at least in my view, not only works well, but also tells stories. Typically, these stories might be about people or places or events. Thus I wanted the students in the second year of the architecture course at the University of Melbourne, where I teach, to design buildings which were not merely functional, but also rich in meaning. To encourage this, in 1999 I challenged each student to design a contemporary, ie. a late 20th century, house for one of the following characters from the Sherlock Holmes stories: Irene Adler, the American-born opera singer with a fondness for cross-dressing, who completely captivated Holmes in 'A Scandal in Bohemia' (1891); Peter Carey, described above; Nathan Garrideb, the eccentric and reclusive collector with the unusual surname, who was tricked into believing he was in line to inherit a large fortune in 'The Three Garridebs' (1924); and Jonas Oldacre, the cruel and vindictive retired builder, who faked his own murder to frame the son of his former sweetheart in 'The Norwood Builder' (1903). As architect's clients go, Adler, Carey, Garrideb and Oldacre are colourful characters to say the least. The house was to be located in Murchison Square, a 'handkerchief' of parkland surrounded on four sides by terrace houses in North Carlton, a quiet, inner suburb of Melbourne. Following is a selection of some of the students' work.

Slide 1 House for Jonas Oldacre Designed by Tarna Schmidt

Slide 2 House for Irene Adler Designed by Katie Shinkfield

Slide 3 House for Nathan Garrideb Designed by Martin Kluger

Slide 4 House for Peter Carey Designed by Geoffrey Wong

Slide 5 House for Peter Carey Designed by Josephine Fu

---

Slide 6 House for Peter Carey

Designed by Yvonne Yuen

Slide 7 House for Jonas Oldacre Designed by Henry Wong

Slide 8 House for Peter Carey Designed by Noha Khalaf

Slide 9 House for Jonas Oldacre Designed by Jackson Hung

Slide 10 House for Peter Carey Designed by Jimmy Thongthai

Slide 11 House for Irene Adler Designed by Tom Mckenzie

Slide 12 House for Peter Carey Designed by Michael Roper

Staff

Ashton-Lomax, Anita
Brott, Simone
Chase, Gary
Colla, Cathi
Gomes, Jennifer
Groves, Derham
Lincolne, Ralph
Mackley, Rina
McLean, Fiona
O'Dwyer, Mark
Pickford, Jason
Selenitsch, Alex

C1322. A Study in Scarlet. New York: J.S. Ogilvie Pub. Co., [1894]. 176, 16 p. ads. (The Sunset Series, No. 99, July 5, 1894. Published tri-monthly)

Light yellow paper covers lettered black; ad for Palliser's American Architecture on back cover.
 
 

C2099. Sherlock Holmes Detective Stories. New York: J.H. Sears & Co., [c.1923]. iii, 239 p. (The Reader's Library. Edited by Lucas Lexow)

Ruby cloth with shield and architectural design in gilt on cover; architectural design on endpapers.

Also published without copyright date on verso of title page.

Contents as above.
 
 

C3199. -- B447. A második folt. A norwoodi épitész. (Detektivtörténetek) [The Second Stain. The Norwood Architect.] Forditotta Milton Oszkér. Budapest: Vass, Révai és Salamon ny, 1905. 112 p.

----------. 2. kiad. Budapest: Gyözö, Révai és Salamon ny, 1907. 112 p.
 
 

C7035. Rosier, Carol. "A Scottish Lineage for the Hound?" BSN, 5, No. 3 (Michaelmas Term 1988), 2-3; 7, No. 1 (Hilary Term 1990), 3-4.

"Some thoughts prompted by a consideration of the architecture of Baskerville Hall."
 
 

C7239. -- B1104. Merrill, Edward A. "Hurlstone Revisited," BSJ, 24, No. 4 (December 1974), 221-231. illus.

A history of the Musgraves and their Manor House, from their establishment in Sussex in the 16th century to the events related by Holmes in the 19th. From an interpretation of such clues as Holmes's language affords, using inferences as well as references, Hurlstone, with its additions, is reconstructed and the story of the family is correlated with British political, social, and architectural history. The hypotheses eliminate the impossible but invite discussion on the improbable. Includes five illustrations by the author.
 
 

C8895. Thomalen, Robert E. "Queen Anne? Or Georgian?" PP, 4, No. 3 (September 1982), 32-35.

Holmes's question about the style of Nathan Garrideb's house may indicate that he was exhibiting a superior knowledge of architecture.
 
 

C10294. -- A3631. Gill, William H. "Some Notable Sherlockian Buildings," SHJ, 4, No. 4 (Spring 1960), 124-126.
 
 

C10295. -- A3632. Van Liere, Edward J. "The Architectural Sherlock Holmes," BSJ, 13, No. 3 (September 1963), 156-163.

----------. ----------, Medical and Other Essays. Morgantown: West Virginia University Library, 1966. p. 143-152.

"Many interesting references to architecture may be found in the novels. This indicates that Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes both had more than a passing interest in architecture. The references are especially pleasing, because they are seldom detailed or technical, and as a consequence may be enjoyed by all."
 
 

C10350. Lindsley, Mary F. "Hansom to Baker Street," BSJ, 34, No. 4 (December 1985), 197.

"We leave Temple Bar, / Westminster, Soho, our daily sightseeing done, / To turn into an ordinary street / Where an invisible house outwatched the Blitz, / Armoured in non-existence. It is sweet / To trust its architecture to our wits."
 
 

C10366. -- A3664. McCullam, William. "The Problem of the Veiled Lodgings," BSJ, 19, No. 2 (June 1969), 101-108.

An architect's view of the location and interior.
 
 

C10866. -- B1773. Gray, Barry. "Is It a Scene from Star Wars ... or the New Metro Library?" The Toronto Sun (August 31, 1977), 41.

Photographs of the five-storey "architectural beauty," including one of Cameron Hollyer in the Arthur Conan Doyle Room.
 
 

C10896. Vastokas, Joan M. "Architecture, Meaning and Values: Raymond Moriyama and the New Metropolitan Toronto Library," Artscanada, 35, No. 1 (February-March 1978), 18-31. illus.

The article mentions the Arthur Conan Doyle Room, "the pride of the Library," and includes a photograph of the Room.
 
 

C11529. -- A3891. Butler, Maida. "Genesis of a Watson," SHJ, 1, No. 2 (September 1952), 22-24.

Just as the illustrator's brother "Wal" Paget served as his model for Holmes, so did he take as his model for Watson the noted architect Alfred Morris Butler.
 
 

C12938. Groves, Derham. The Sherlock Holmes Centre. [Prahran, Victoria, Australia: Privately Printed, 1982.] 1 v. illus.

Master's thesis -- Deakin University.

Text and architectural plans for a Sherlock Holmes Centre that would include a library, museum, theater, and cinema. "A combination of these facilities would create an environment where each branch reinforced the other, and the totality of the experience would become an event in its own right."

Review: SHJ, 16, No. 1 (Winter 1982), 4-5 (Nicholas Utechin).
 
 

C12941. Merrill, Edward A. "The Sherlock Holmes Centre: A Critique," BSM, No. 41 (Spring 1985), 30-32.

The author, a retired architect and knowledgeable Sherlockian, offers some helpful suggestions on Groves's proposal for a Sherlock Holmes Research Center, to be located, perhaps, on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota.
 
 

C13037. Hammer, David L. "The Semiotic Watson," BSJ, 34, No. 1 (March 1984), 22-24.

A satirical approach to semiotics by analyzing Watson's personification of houses not only as faces but as women through the Watsonian use of unintended sexual references. One example is from SixN: "Number 31 was one of a row, all flat-chested, respectable and most unromantic dwellings." Hammer concludes that Watson "may have been a secret subscriber to the Architectural Digest -- delivered, of course, in a plain brown wrapper.
 
 

C14039. Andrews, Malcolm. "Elementary, My Dear Derham: Clued-up Architect Joins Sherlock's Irregulars," Daily Telegraph [Melbourne] (May 29, 1985), 4. illus.

Australian Holmes buff, Derham Groves, has designed a special Sherlock Holmes Center for the University of Minnesota. The design formed part of a thesis for his degree in architecture. It is envisioned that the center will house the world's largest collection of Holmes memorabilia.
 
 

C16087. Zuberry Associates/The Clermont Co. "But, I say, Holmes, how did you know this was the condo for you?" "The details, Watson, the details. Obviously what we have here is an architect who savors the craft," The New York Times Magazine (July 26, 1987).

Holmes and Watson comment on The Petersfield condominium apartments.
 
 

C17131. -- B3627. "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" Albuquerque Journal (September 25, 1977).

"Gillette Castle ... was built by actor William Gillette, who acted as his own architect, designer and decorator."
 
 

C17144. Mosier, Alan S. "The Adventure of the Architect Actor," Q£$, 2, No. 4 (November 19, 1981), 45-46.

A brief account of a visit to the castle.
 
 

C17167. Wiggins, Elizabeth. "Museum Architect Dies Suddenly at Holiday Home," SHG, No. 5 (Summer 1992), 16. illus.

An obituary for John Reid.

The Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota Library constitute the world’s largest gathering of material related to Sherlock Holmes and his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Collections consist of over 15,000 items including books, journals, and a wide variety of other forms through which the transformation of the Holmes character from the printed page to a cultural icon can be traced.

The Sherlockian materials within the Collections include:

Artifacts
Audio & Video Recordings
Books
Journals
License Plates
Manuscripts
Motion Pictures & Film Strips
Musical Scores
Original Artwork
Periodicals
Personal Papers & Libraries
Playbills
Posters
Radio Scripts & Original recordings
Scrapbooks
Statuary
T-Shirts
Theatrical Programs
Toys & Games

SHERLOCK HOLMES STORIES by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Between 1887 and 1927 Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories

featuring the Holmes character. The Collections include a wide range of English language editions of these works, plus translations in over fifty other languages.

SHERLOCK HOLMES STORIES by Other Writers. Following in the footsteps of Sir Arthur, many writers have taken their own turn at creating a Holmes adventure. These imitations or pastiches have included works by Isaac Asimov, Agatha Christie, Adrian Conan Doyle (Sir Arthur’s son), Stephen King, A.A. Milne, Mark Twain, and P.G. Wodehouse. The Collections have a wide selection, both serious and lighthearted.

WRITINGS ON THE WRITINGS. These include commentaries and reference works on almost every aspect of the Holmes stories and the Victorian Era in which they are set.

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. If one wants to know more about the creator of Sherlock Holmes, the Collections have biographical material, as well as Conan Doyle’s own works of non-Sherlockian fiction and nonfiction.

JOURNALS AND PERIODICALS. The Collections hold numerous journals from Sherlock Holmes appreciation societies throughout the world. The journal collection includes complete holdings of the Baker Street Journal, from the Baker Street Irregulars of New York, and The Sherlock

Holmes Journal from the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. Copies of The Strand Magazine, where many of the Holmes stories first appeared, are also available for consultation.

SCRAPBOOKS. The scrapbooks contain exhaustive clippings from periodicals which mention Holmes or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The scrapbooks were assembled by John Bennett Shaw and they include material from 1869 to 1994.

THE PERFORMING ARTS. The performing arts material includes audio and video recordings, musical scores, posters, scripts, theater programs, and other material related to Holmes productions.

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND POPULAR CULTURE. Numerous artifacts document the iconographic development and universal appeal of Sherlock Holmes. The typical deerstalker hat, magnifying glass and curved pipe

associated with Holmes are represented in their many mediums.
 
 

The Sherlock Holmes Collections began in 1974 with the purchase of James C. Iraldi’s small but distinguished library of first editions of the Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Thus, the University of Minnesota Library has been building the Sherlock Holmes Collections for more than twenty years. Direct purchases and generous donations have helped the Collections to reach their current size and comprehensiveness.

Two of the more important collections of the many that have been added since 1974 are those of Philip S. Hench and John Bennett Shaw.

Philip S. Hench M.D., was a Mayo Clinic consulting physician and a recipient of the Nobel Prize for medicine (1950), who, with his wife Mary Kahler Hench, built one of the more remarkable Sherlockian libraries ever assembled. The treasures of the Hench library include: unique copies of Beeton’s Christmas Annual, (1887) containing "A Study in Scarlet", the first Sherlock Holmes adventure; English and American first editions of the stories; plus material related to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, William Gillette,

and Frederic Dorr Steele.

John Bennett Shaw, an entrepreneur from Santa Fe, New Mexico attempted to collect everything on or about Sherlock Holmes and nearly succeeded. The Shaw Collection is the most diverse, with items running the gamut from books to stuffed animals.
 
 

The materials in the Sherlock Holmes Collections do not circulate outside of the reading room of the Special Collections and Rare Books Department. Photocopying is available and is subject to applicable copyright laws.

Before visiting the Collections in person, please make an appointment with the Collection Specialist for the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the address shown at the top of this page.

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 Last Revised: June 28, 2000