Anne Hewlett Fuller

Anne Hewlett Fuller (January 9, 1896 – July 3, 1983), Buckminster Fuller's wife of sixty-six years, daughter of the architect and muralist James Monroe Hewlett — a creative spirit in her own right whose cheerful resilience sustained the Fuller household through decades of unconventional life.

Anne Hewlett was the eldest daughter of James Monroe Hewlett (1868-1941), a prominent Beaux Arts architect who graduated from Columbia, studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, joined McKim, Mead & White, co-founded Lord and Hewlett (1894), and served as president of the Architectural League of New York and director of the American Academy in Rome (1932-35). He is credited with the mural of the heavens on the ceiling of Grand Central Terminal. The Hewletts were an old Long Island family — the town of Hewlett, New York is named for them. Anne's mother, Anna Willets, came from a Quaker family. Anne had nine younger siblings.

Anne attended the New York School of Applied Design for Women and was "a creative spirit in her own right." She met Fuller around 1914-1916 (sources vary). They married July 12, 1917, at Rock Hall, Lawrence, Long Island, during World War I. The marriage gave Fuller "entry into a world that would change his life: her father's architectural circle." Her family connected him to architecture and to the Stockade Building System — based on a building block her father had patented — which became Fuller's first business venture.

Their first daughter, Alexandra Willets Fuller (December 12, 1918 – November 14, 1922), contracted spinal meningitis and infantile paralysis. Fuller suspected the death was connected to damp and drafty living conditions — a motivation for his housing innovations. The grief contributed to heavy drinking, personal crisis, and the eventual 1927 turning point. Their second daughter, Allegra Fuller Snyder, was born August 28, 1927, in Chicago.

Family spokesman Ron Landsman described Anne as "a tremendous behind-the-scene supporter of Bucky." She managed the household through Fuller's constant travel (roughly 300 nights a year in hotels by the 1960s-70s), his unconventional work schedule, and his periods of poverty. Alec Nevala-Lee's biography notes she played an "unsung role" and that the marriage survived severe strains — they came close to divorcing at least twice. In the mid-1930s, Anne designed a clapboard cottage for the family in Noroton, Connecticut, a notable accomplishment given that her husband, the famous designer, had not yet built an affordable home.

In her own words: "I have really enjoyed it. He's a great worrier, all these tremendous problems are on his mind and some of them weigh very heavily. But my mind is not that way; I'm more cheery and not too concerned with weighty problems." And: "I realize there's not much I can do about them, so my philosophy is to enjoy life."

In 1960, Anne and Bucky moved into a geodesic dome at 407 S. Forest Avenue, Carbondale, Illinois — the only dome he ever lived in and the only property he ever owned. Anne said: "We enjoyed living in the dome. It was easy to take care of, and even though it was only 1,000 square feet, it seemed like a big house and we didn't feel closed in." The home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006 as "The R. Buckminster Fuller and Anne Hewlett Dome Home." They later moved to Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, to be near Allegra and her family.

Anne and Bucky died within thirty-six hours of each other in July 1983 — he on July 1 at her bedside in Good Samaritan Hospital, she on July 3 without regaining consciousness. They are buried together at Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts, under a shared marker reading "Call Me Trimtab."

Sources

Anne Hewlett Fuller (research)
Alec Nevala-Lee, Inventor of the Future (2022) — reviewed in The Nation
Interview with Anne and Buckminster Fuller (salsburg.com)

Anne Hewlett Fuller

See Also

Sources