Orff, Fremont Dayton | Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada

ORFF, Fremont Dayton (1856-1914) of Minneapolis, Minn. designed the Alexandra Block, McDermot Avenue at Arthur Street, WINNIPEG, MAN. in 1901 (Winnipeg Tribune, 15 April 1901, 5, descrip.; Winnipeg, 1984-The Year Past, 1986, 43-5, illus.). This progressive Beaux-Arts design combined commercial and residential occupancy in a structure located on an awkward triangular site. It was commissioned by James and William Tupper, both sons of Sir Charles Tupper, one of the Fathers of Confederation. Orff was born in Bangor, Maine on 4 May 1856 and moved to Minneapolis in 1879. He practised there with his brother G.W. Orff and later with Edgar E. Joralemon. His best known works in Minnesota include Waseca County Courthouse (1897), the Big Stone County Court House (1901-02), the Renville County Courthouse (1902) and the Red Lake County Courthouse (1910). He died in Rochester, Minn. on 16 February 1914 (obituary in the Minneapolis Journal, 16 Feb. 1914, 14; biog. in Alan Lathrop, Minnesota Architects: A Biographical Dictionary, 2010, 165-6; inf. from the Minnesota Historical Society)