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In 1970, the firm of Charles Moore Associates moved from its location adjacent to the Yale Art and Architecture Building in downtown New Haven, Connecticut, to a nineteenth-century mill building overlooking the Falls River waterfall in rural Centerbrook, Connecticut.

Within five years the firm changed its name to Moore Grover Harper and William H. Grover, Robert L. Harper, Jefferson B. Riley, and Glenn W. Arbonies joined as partners. In 1978, with Charles Moore relocated to California to serve as Dean of the UCLA School of Architecture, Mark Simon and Chad Floyd joined as partners.

In 1983 the firm's name was changed to Centerbrook Architects and Planners to convey the partners' vision of making a notable place to which talented architects would be drawn for the purpose of achieving excellence in architecture. Grover, Riley, Simon, and Floyd, all former students of Charles W. Moore, went on to be the partners who would carry out the vision of Centerbrook throughout the 1980s, 90s, and into the twenty-first century. In 1996, James C. Childress was made a partner and in 2002 Charles G. Mueller was made a principal. In 2008 Bill Grover became a partner emeritus. He continues to work on selected projects.

Having started the firm in 1975 at the height of the energy crisis and in the midst of a major economic recession, the partners, with only a few employees, focused their work largely on energy-conserving and solar-heated building designs, much of it residential. By 1995 the firm had attained its current size of approximately 80 employees with work of great variety throughout the United States and several foreign countries. In 1998 it received the prestigious Firm Award from the American Institute of Architects.

The partners remain committed to design excellence, personal service, and the nurturing of talent under the broad roof of the enduring mill building that is home to Centerbrook Architects.

History

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