Property Improvements, 1911 – 1912

The new building abutting the rue de la Grande Chaumière was designed by American architect Charles Meissonier Knight, known as Charly Knight, born in Poissy, France on November 27, 1877. His father, Daniel Ridgway Knight, was a celebrated painter who spent most of his life in France and worked in the private studio of Ernest Meissonier (after whom Charly was named). Charly’s brother, Louis Aston Knight, was a well-respected landscape artist. Educated at the Lycée Condorcet, then at the École des Beaux-Arts, Charly married Alice Boucherie, daughter of Maurice Boucherie, inventor of a wood conservation method on August 12, 1903 (Knight 8). In 1905, he was awarded a "mention honorable" in architecture at the Salon des artistes français. Like Reid, Knight  was affiliated with the Church of the Holy Trinity. He was very popular in the American colony, receiving prestigious commissions for grand buildings and private homes. In 1913, he was invited to become a permanent member of the reputable Cercle de l’Union artistique and was made Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1924. His office at 11 rue Marbeuf in Paris was described in the Paris Times as "[...] furnished with antiques of beautiful workmanship and tapestries of an older day. His working quarters indicate an artistic heritage confirmed by his parentage and life" (4). During WWII, Knight may have been interned in the German "international" camp in Compiègne. He died on January 13, 1967 and was buried in the cemetery of St. Germain en Laye.

Knight’s monumental art, private residences, and public architecture are impressive. Several of his buildings are cataloged in L’Inventaire général du patrimoine culturel. Notable examples of his work include:

• c. 1905 – 1906: Pedestal for John-J. Boyle’s statue of Benjamin Franklin, donated to the city of Paris by the financier John-H. Harjes and unveiled on April 20, 1906 in the Trocadero gardens. The massive pedestal featured bas-reliefs by Frédéric Bron and also depicted an extract of Mirabeau’s 1790 eulogy of Franklin: “The genius who freed America and poured a flood of light over Europe! The sage whom two worlds claim as their own” (Le Figaro, March 30, 1906, 3, translated from French).
• c. 1908 – 1910: Tiffany & Cie. Collaborating with interior decorator Armand-Albert Rateau, Knight designed Tiffany’s 360-meter-square boutique on the fashionable corner of rue de la Paix and place de l’Opéra (Phillips 42).
• 1915: Redesigned the private homes of American author Edith Wharton, transforming her house at St.-Brice-la Forêt as well her villa at Hyères.
• 1918 – 1919: Sources indicate that he renovated the château de Peyrieu, the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Jacob (Grace Whitney) Hoff near Aix-les-Bains.
• 1919 In collaboration with sculptor Marius Borget, Knight designed a Cenotaph that was publicly revealed on November 23.
• 1920: Restored and modernized the entire interior of the eighteenth-century building occupied by the Bankers’ Trust, place Vedôme.
• 1922 – 1926: Designed the American Hospital’s Memorial building in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.
• 1925 – 1929: Designed the Ford automobile factory and director’s residence. Asnières, France.
• 1926 – 1928: Designed the Foyer international des étudiantes, 93 Boulevard St. Michel. This residence had been founded in an old convent in 1906 by Grace Whitney-Hoff, member of Holy Trinity. Hoff commissioned Knight to completely renovate the property, creating seven distinct floors, with a beautiful wood-paneled library, rooms for 100 residents, a cafeteria, salons, concert hall, and an infirmary. It was opened on October 10, 1928. Whitney-Hoff donated the property to the University of Paris in 1936.
• 1933: Created the Renault showroom (now the Citroen showroom), Avenue Wagram, one of the best examples of industrial design in its time.