Architect oversaw JFK International Arrivals Terminal and other major projects. Fund at The Trust supports a variety of charitable causes.
John Walter Severinghaus (1905-1987)
Helen Merrill Clark Severinghaus (1906-2004)
Soon after the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) opened its New York City office in 1937, John Walter Severinghaus signed on as a draftsman and model maker. He became a partner in 1949, and by the time he retired in 1975, SOM had offices in Hong Kong and seven U.S. cities plus satellite offices in Paris, Tehran, and Algeria.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, Walter (as he was known professionally) oversaw many of the New York office’s major projects, including JFK Airport’s International Arrivals Terminal, which served as the airport’s logo for years; the 60-story Chase Manhattan Bank headquarters in the Financial District, completed in 1961; and Texaco’s 750,000-square-foot world headquarters in Purchase.
The company Walter helped build is now one of the world’s most significant architectural firms, having designed numerous “megatall” structures, such as Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which tops out at 2,722 feet—more than half a mile.
John Walter was born December 20, 1905, the youngest of Charles and Ida Severinghaus’ five children. As the son and grandson of Methodist ministers, Walter grew up in a series of parsonages in the Midwest. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1928, then studied architecture at Ohio State University, graduating in 1931.
While he was still a student, he designed and built a house for his parents in Ohio. Carpentry and building were lifelong hobbies, whether he was crafting a cradle for his grandchildren or building a summer home in the Adirondacks.
In 1932, Walter moved to New York and joined the architecture firm Adams & Prentice. Five years later, he accepted the job at SOM. During World War II, he was drafted by the Army Air Force and assigned to design and oversee construction of air bases in the Azores.
On leave in July 1943, Lieutenant Severinghaus married Helen Merrill Clark.
Helen, the daughter of Charles A. and Elmira Watson Clark, was born August 14, 1906, in Providence, Rhode Island. She grew up in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, and graduated from Mount Holyoke College, where she was president of the Class of 1927. She began her teaching career at Dana Hall, a private girls’ school near Boston, and later received a doctorate in zoology from Columbia University. She was a professor at Hunter College in the Bronx when she met and married Walter.
The couple lived in Yonkers for 12 years before moving to Scarsdale in 1957. They had two children: John Merrill and Nancy Clark. Helen returned to teaching part-time in the 1960s.
Walter was a fellow in the American Institute of Architects, and president of the University Club in New York City in the late 1970s. From 1964 to 1970, he was a member of the Scarsdale Board of Education.
Walter died on October 16, 1987, at age 81. In a tribute in the White Plains Daily Argus, a fellow board member, John Ullman, remembered Walter as “a man of great ability coupled with a kind and gentle character… a beacon of stability.” And PTA president Dorothy Bajak said he was “a gentleman and gentle person, but forceful and knowledgeable.”
After Walter died, Helen moved to Lebanon, New Hampshire, to be near her son and his family. An avid environmentalist, Helen was an early board member of Friends of the Earth, and Lebanon offered a pristine setting on the Connecticut River. In 2002, at her 70th class reunion, she received the Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Association’s Medal of Honor, and, at age 95, she was the only member to attend the 75th “reunion.” She died January 12, 2004, at age 97.
The Severinghaus funds in The New York Community Trust support a range of causes with grantees that include Community Food Advocates, Children’s Aid, and New Alternatives for Children.