Ellis, Chauncey Howard | Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada

ELLIS, Chauncey Howard (1885-1922), son of the Toronto architect James A. Ellis, was born in Meaford, Ontario on 9 January 1885 and attended Humberside Collegiate in Toronto. He spent two years studying architecture and construction at the School of Practical Science at the University of Toronto, then moved to New York City to attend the School of Architecture at Columbia University. While living there, he spent two years training in the office of Charles H. Platt (1861-1933), a leading architect in New York and advocate of the refined Beaux-Arts style in American architecture. Ellis then returned to Toronto and in 1915 he was invited by his father to form a new partnership with him (see list of works for Ellis & Ellis under entry for James A. Ellis). Their collaboration ended suddenly on 27 January 1922 when C. Howard Ellis died unexpectedly in Toronto at the age of 37 years (obituary The Globe [Toronto], 28 Jan. 1922, 14; Toronto Star, 28 Jan. 1922, 26; obit. C.R., xxxvi, 8 Feb. 1922, 144). His father was successor to the partnership, but continued to practise under the firm name of Ellis & Ellis for another five years until 1927.