Riddle, Theodate Pope (1867-1946), was one of the first practicing female architects in the United States. She was best known for her designs for schools and private homes. Riddle’s major projects reflect the influence of traditional American and English architecture.
Riddle was one of the first women to become a licensed architect in the state of Connecticut. She gained particular recognition for her projects there. Her first notable project was Hill-Stead (1901), a retirement home for her parents and family in Farmington and now an art museum. She designed the estate in the Colonial Revival style popular in America in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Riddle founded and designed Avon Old Farms School (1927), a boys’ boarding school in Avon. The school buildings were inspired by English architecture of the 1500’s. The structures were built using traditional English methods.
Riddle designed the Westover School (1909) in Middlebury, a boarding school for girls. She also designed the Hop Brook School (1916) for the children of foreign laborers in Naugatuck. Another notable commission was the early 1920’s reconstruction of former President Theodore Roosevelt’s birthplace in New York City.
Riddle was born Effie Brooks Pope on Feb. 2, 1867, in Cleveland, Ohio. She changed her name from Effie to Theodate when she was 19 in honor of her maternal grandmother, Theodate Stackpole. Theodate married the American diplomat John Wallace Riddle in 1916. Her only academic training in architecture came from private tutors from Princeton University whom she hired as a young adult. Riddle was one of the survivors of the sinking of the ocean liner Lusitania by a German submarine in 1915, during World War I (1914-1918). She died on Aug. 30, 1946.
