I am sad to share that my uncle, Elric J. Endersby, architectural historian and preservationist, passed away in October of 2025.
We had been working together for years to catalog and preserve his collection of archival materials, including an extensive set of original measured drawings of about 700 timber frame structures.
Archive Description
An appropriate institution is being sought to house the archival materials of architectural historian, preservationist, and timber-framer Elric J. Endersby. The collection features his culturally invaluable collection of measured drawings of 700 historic timber-frame structures and represents the life’s work of an architect with a profound mission to document and preserve vernacular architecture.
Elric J. Endersby (1946–2025) was widely recognized as an expert in early-American architecture focused on mid-Atlantic buildings, and as a leading practitioner in the field of historic preservation, restoring over 180 buildings.
Over the course of a lengthy and active career he continuously documented barns and other timber-frame structures, resulting in an extensive and singularly important collection of measured architectural drawings that comprise a record of 700 historic buildings, many now destroyed.
These materials are supplemented by his papers, which include sets of drawings documenting architectural styles and details, labelled photographic documentation of houses and timber-frame structures, slide lectures, manuscripts related to his publications, a complete print collection of his award-winning oral history journal The Princeton Recollector (1975–1986), and a focused personal collection of relevant architectural reference publications.
– From Archive Description Document
Elric J. Endersby in the News
Over the years, many articles have been written about Elric Endersby’s life and work, from his early oral history projects in Princeton to his decades of preservation and architectural restoration with the New Jersey Barn Company. In addition, he is a widely published author through The Princeton Recollector (1975-1989), Barn: The Art of a Working Building (with Alexander Greenwood, 1992), and other books and articles.
I’ve gathered some of the most important and engaging of these publications to make it easy to explore his story in one place:
Images
The images below provide a glimpse into the work that Elric Endersby and the New Jersey Barn Company have done to preserve and restore timber frame barns. They include measured documentary drawings, photographic documentation of original structures, snapshots of the preservation process, published materials, original sketches, and more. (For now, these images are provided without necessary context. We are working on presentations that will provide more useful information.)
More images can be found on the @elric.endersby Instagram:
