Verna Cook Salomonsky

Verna Cook Salomonsky (1890–1978) was a pioneering early 20th-century American architect known for her work as a solo practitioner in residential communities outside of New York in the 1920s and 1930s and later as an author on architectural design and history. Cook attended Spokane High school, graduating in 1908, and then enrolled for a year at The Misses Gilman's School for Girls in Boston, Massachusetts. She subsequently traveled to Paris and enrolled at the École Spéciale d'Architecture for two years, returning to the United States in October 1911. After saving up enough money to continue schooling and the shutdown of École Spéciale d'Architecture due to World War I, she began two and a half years of coursework at Columbia University's School of Architecture from 1915 to 1918 instead. Their offices were located at 368 Lexington Avenue until 1921, when they moved to 331 Madison Avenue; in the late 1920s they were located at 40 East 49th Street and by 1936, they were located at 424 Madison Avenue. In the early 1920s, Cook used her knowledge of running a household as well as her architectural education to write for magazines such as The House Beautiful and House and Garden. She regularly wrote about the service entry, storage areas, linen and china closets, furnishing, and decorating.

During the late 1920s, Cook also created the designs for several lines of "boudoir accessories" including hand mirrors, combs, and hairbrushes. She also analyzed furniture alongside her husband around this time. Her work primarily relied on traditional vocabularies, including Georgian, Colonial and English style houses as well as eclectic combinations of various styles. By 1937, she was a registered architect in New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania and had served as a critic for one semester at the School of Design for Women in Philadelphia, PA and for three years at the New York School of Interior Decoration in New York City. She retired from practicing architecture in 1939 due to issues with her eyesight. The couple moved to California in 1947, and travel to Mexico in the 1950s inspired five books on historic and contemporary Mexican residential architecture, cowritten by Cook and her husband.

Cook died in September of 1978 in La Jolla, California, where she moved to in 1972 following her husband's death, and her archives today reside at the University of California at San Diego.

Built works House in Fieldston (1920), Riverdale, New York City, with Edgar Salomonsky House of M.F. Griffin (1928), Scarsdale, N.Y., with Edgar Salomonsky House of Raymond Faith (1928), Bryn Mawr Park, N.Y., with Edgar Salomonsky House of Edgar Salomonsky, Scarsdale, N.Y., with Edgar Salomonsky C.E. Wells House (1929), Woodland Park, Summit, New Jersey, with Edgar Salomonsky C. Ernest Greenwood House (1933), Scarsdale, N.Y. Tauton Road House (1934), Scarsdale, N.Y. Lockwood and Axtell Drive House (1934), Scarsdale, N.Y. House in Berkley, Scarsdale (1933) Marjorie Warren House (1933) North Castle, NY Dr. Herman Prange House (1934), Scarsdale, NY House of C.G. Novotny (1935), Scarsdale, NY Residence of A.W. Brown (1936), Scarsdale, NY Pugliese House (1938), Harrison, NY Dwight and Kate Wade House (1940), Sevierville, Tennessee. National Register of Historic Places (1997).

Awards Third prize, Loeb Prize of the Society of Beaux Arts Architects, 1915. First Prize, "Brick House." Small House Competition, 1921. Second prize, Small House Competition sponsored by The House Beautiful, 1927. Shipway, Verna Cook. Masterpieces of furniture, in photographs and measured drawings. New York: Dover Publications, 1953. Shipway, Verna Cook and Warren Shipway, The Mexican House, Old & New. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1960. Shipway, Verna Cook and Warren Shipway, Mexican interiors. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1962. Shipway, Verna Cook and Warren Shipway, Mexican homes of today. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1964. Shipway, Verna Cook and Warren Shipway, Decorative design in Mexican homes. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1966. Shipway, Verna Cook and Warren Shipway, Houses of Mexico; origins and traditions. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1970.

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