century association biographical archive

Earliest Members of the Century Association

View all members

Frank H. Holden

Architect

Centurion, 1905–1937

Full Name Frank Howell Holden

Born 8 June 1870 in Chicago, Illinois

Died 29 May 1937 in New York (Manhattan), New York

Buried Stockbridge Cemetery, Stockbridge, Massachusetts

Proposed by Richard Watson Gilder and Walter Cook

Elected 4 March 1905 at age thirty-four

Century Memorial

At the Club-house, the pleasant smile and friendly manner with which Frank Howell Holden met fellow-Centurions were an exceedingly familiar picture. Somehow, Holden was apt to be encountered in the first-floor office, either opening the mail from his box or talking with the office staff. This was perhaps continuance of habit contracted when, a decade ago, he served his term on the House committee—that useful and self-sacrificing body, in performing whose duties members take on themselves another business in addition to their own. Holden was always active, in his quiet way, in the interests of the Club, on whose Board of Management and Admissions committee he had periodically occupied a place. He was an architect of some distinction; had long prepared himself abroad and at home for the profession, and had become well known for his notably original planning of large interiors. What most of the Club probably did not know—for Holden never talked about himself—was that he was also an accomplished violinist, who had an important hand in co-operating with De Coppet for introducing to New York the chamber music of our great composers.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1938 Century Association Yearbook