Louis L. Long
Mar 24th, 2010 by Director
LOUIS L. LONG (working 1853-1860)
Louis L. Long practiced architecture in Baltimore for about 8 years (1853-1860) with about 30 documented buildings to his credit, well known in their time and ours. Their significance and prominence justify this beginning of a biography here. We know nothing of his background nor his life, except his marriage in 1854 to Anna E. Storm at St. Joseph’s Chapel in Emmittsburg, MD, and his enlistment in the Army of the Confederate States of America in 1861.
With his many known works for the Roman Catholic church and its institutions he must have been a Roman Catholic.
His best known work in Baltimore is St. Ignatius Church and Loyola College, 1853-56, on Calvert Street at Madison Street. Two towers were intended for the church but never built. Its exterior trim is of cast-iron. A similar but more elaborate work by him that did receive at least the lower stories of its towers is St. Alphonsus Church, 1855 in New Orleans. St. Mary’s Church and Novitiate in Annapolis is a prominent and well known landmark there, 1858, Gothic revival with an intended tall steeple completed nearly two decades later.
Two brownstone houses by Long are 103 and 105 W. Monument Street for Dr. George Rueling, 1860, and for William or Augustus Albert, 1859, respectively, prominent and well-known. For their period, Italianate design and materials they are equal to the best by others in Baltimore.
Louis L. Long entered the competition for the Peabody Institute in 1857.
Henry Hamilton Pittar, a civil engineer and architect, was associated with Long at St. Ignatius, Baltimore in 1853. Some 1859 work is documented to Long & Powell, S. Robinson Powell. We know even less about these associates.
Insofar as we know, he was not related to the two generations of architects Robert Carey Long in Baltimore. (See their biographies on this website.)
James T. Wollon, Jr. with research by the author and John McGrain.
