Born: c. 1900

Died: December 1989

Married: Katherine Thurber

Children: Meredith Knowlton; Robert Thurber McLaughlin

Robert W. McLaughlin, Jr., came to Saranac Lake as a TB patient after his military service. Here he stayed with his friend from Princeton and fellow patient John Baxter Black in the Larom Cottage at 112 Park Avenue, the private home which the Black family had rented for John's cure. After John Black's death, McLaughlin was commissioned by the Black family to design two successive additions to the Saranac Laboratory, the John Black Room and later the second floor offices above it.

New York Times, December 2, 1989, Section 1, page 15

R. W. McLuaghlin [sic], 89, Architecture Professor

Robert William McLaughlin, emeritus professor of architecture at Princeton University's School of Architecture, died Thursday at Princeton (N.J.) Medical Center after a brief illness. He was 89 years old and lived in Princeton.

From 1930 to 1952 Mr. McLaughlin was a partner in Holden, McLaughlin & Associates, a New York company that specialized in the design of public housing, schools and hospitals.

In 1932 he founded American Houses Inc., which was among the first companies to be involved in prefabricated homes. He was awarded more than 20 patents for techniques in building and was architect for several large public housing projects. He was also architectural adviser to the State Department for the design of the United States Embassy in London.

In 1952, Prof. McLaughlin was appointed director of the School of Architecture at Princeton, a post he held until his retirement in 1965. He advised the New Jersey Capitol Commission and wrote several books on architecture.

He graduated from Princeton in 1921 and received a master's degree in 1926, after serving with the Navy during World War I. He is survived by his wife, the former Katherine Thurber; a daughter, Meredith Knowlton, of Princeton; a son, Robert Thurber McLaughlin, of Potomac, Md., and four grandchildren.

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