APPONYI, Charles Edward (1843-1913), was an architect and builder from San Francisco, California who designed a major theatre complex known as the Victoria Theatre, Douglas Street at View Street, VICTORIA, B.C., 1885; demol. c. 1988 (Daily British Colonist [Victoria], 11 Nov. 1884, 3, descrip.; 24 March 1885, 3; 22 July 1885, 3). It featured an 'Italian style' facade, with seating for eight hundred patrons, and contained hotel rooms on the upper floors that served as an annex to the adjacent Driard House Hotel. His only other known work in British Columbia was a large mansion in the Eastlake style for Jacob Sehl, Montreal Street at Belleville Street, VICTORIA, B.C., 1885; burned 1894 (Daily British Colonist [Victoria], 1 Jan. 1886, 2).
Born in Baltimore, Maryland on 12 March 1843, Apponyi moved to San Francisco in 1876 and with his partner Mr. Hoehhofer prepared a highly eclectic design for the New Greek Church in that city (Builder [London], xxxvi, 19 Oct. 1878, 1095, illus.). He left San Francisco after 1882 and lived and worked in Victoria in 1884-85. In August 1885 he was erroneously reported to have won the competition for the Colorado State Legislative Building in Denver (Daily British Colonist [Victoria], 8 July 1885, 3); in fact he was one of three finalists whose designs were later 'blended' together by Elijah E. Myers, the architect from Detroit who received the commission to carry out the project (H.R. Hitchcock & W. Seale, Temples of Democracy: The State Capitols of the U.S.A., 1976, 188-90). In 1890 Apponyi was awarded First Prize of $250 for his Romanesque Revival design for the Salt Lake City Hall & County Building, Utah (Salt Lake Herald, 3 Jan. 1890, descrip.), but escalating costs and construction problems led to his dismissal in November 1890, and a new site and a new architect were selected during the following year. Apponyi died at Alameda, Calif. on 2 September 1913 (inf. from California Historical Society; D. Luxton, Building The West: The Early Architects of British Columbia, 2003, 94-5, 491, illus.). A biography of the career of Apponyi up to 1902 was published in The New York Times, 2 Feb. 1902, page 20.