David Adler was a prolific architect, designing over 200 buildings. He was the son of Therese and Issac Adler and had one sister, Frances Adler Elkins, who became one of the mid 20th-century's great interior decorators and often worked with her brother on residential projects.
Adler was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After graduating from Princeton in 1904, he travelled extensively, mostly studying and observing the architecture of Europe. After returning to the United States in 1911, he began working for Howard Van Doren Shaw in Chicago, Illinois. After a short period, he opened a new office with a friend from Paris, Henry Dangler. David married Katherine Keith, an Illinois socialite and writer, in 1916 and they moved to Libertyville one year later. He became a widower in 1930 after his wife was killed in a car accident in Europe.
Working in association with his partners, first Henry Dangler who died in 1917, and then Robert Work, Adler was not registered as an architect in Illinois until 1929, which was after he had already been elected to the American Institute of Architects. He died, aged 67, in Libertyville, Illinois.
Significant works by Adler include:
