Born in 1848 in
Trenton, New York, Miller attended
Cornell University from 1868 to 1870, but departed without graduating one year before the College of Architecture was created. Cornell refers to Miller as "Cornell’s first student of architecture," and his portrait hangs in the Uris Library lobby, which he designed.[2]
Miller married Emma Halsey of Ithaca in 1876. He is buried at
Lake View Cemetery in Ithaca, New York under a distinctive wrought-iron cross of his design and across from the Cornell family mausoleum he designed for his longtime benefactors, the Cornell family.[3]
Works
Miller was the foremost architect in Ithaca and at
Cornell University for many years, designing over seventy buildings on and off campus including 9 fraternity houses.[4] Among his buildings for Cornell were the
President's House,
Barnes Hall,
University Library, Boardman Hall, infirmaries, and
Prudence Risley Hall. In 1878 he was commissioned by the
Cornell University chapter of
Alpha Delta Phi to build them a chapter house, it was the first building ever to be designed and built specifically for use by a fraternity as their lodge and residence.[5] Among his other fraternity houses were
Deke House,
Sigma Chi's chapter house,
Chi Phi Lodge, and two former mansions: "Greystone Mansion," originally owned by silent movie actress
Irene Castle, and the
Jennie McGraw-
Willard Fiske mansion, modeled on a French chateau, which became the
Chi Psi fraternity house and burned down in 1906.[6][7]
Among his non-Ithaca buildings were the main building of
Wells College in
Aurora, New York, the
Toutorsky Mansion in
Washington, D.C., built for US Supreme Court Justice
Henry Billings Brown in Washington, D.C., in 1894, the Berkshire "cottage"
Oronoque in Stockbridge, M.A., for Birdseye Blakeman in 1887,[15] a villa on
Carleton Island for Wyckoff's father, the typewriter magnate William O. Wyckoff,[16] and
Iviswold (1889) for David Brinkerfhoff Ivison, designed as an expansion of the Floyd W. Tomkins House in Rutherford, N.J.[17] Iviswold is now part of the Rutherford campus of
Felician College. Miller also designed two mansions on Rochester, New York's East Avenue (The Avenue of the Presidents) at 800 for Dr. John W. Whitbeck in 1887 and at 963 for Francis A. Macomber in 1888.