Rediscover the Gilded Age’s Most Famous Architects

The biggest murder trial of the 20th century happened in its sixth year—not its 95th, as viewers of the O.J. Simpson trial might claim. On June 5, 1906, celebrity architect Stanford White—52-year-old co-founder of the firm McKim, Mead & White and a serial womanizer—was shot dead by the husband of his mistress in front of a crowd of people on the roof of a New York City building he had designed.

What followed was a drawn-out trial that saw his murderer successfully use an insanity defense, and his murderer’s mother use her wealth and power to convince a captivated nation that it was White who was at fault, according to Mosette Broderick, a New York University historian and architect who wrote a book on the history of White’s architecture firm five years ago.