Charles Belfoure

Charles Belfoure is an accomplished architect and author, hailing from Westminster, Maryland. He has built a successful career in the field of historic preservation and has also made a name for himself in the literary world. Belfoure graduated from the Pratt Institute and Columbia University, and later went on to teach at Pratt and Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. His expertise in historic preservation has earned him recognition, including a Graham Foundation national grant for architectural research.

As a writer, Belfoure specializes in fiction that centers around architecture and architects. His debut novel, "The Paris Architect," was a New York Times bestseller and tells the story of an architect who designs hidden spaces to help Jews escape from Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II. His follow-up novel, "House of Thieves," is set in Gilded Age New York and features an architect who is forced to work for a criminal ring in order to save his son. Belfoure's third novel, "The Fallen Architect," is a mystery set in the world of British music halls in the early 1900s. His fourth book, "The Faberge Secret," is set in the Imperial Russian court of Nicholas and Alexandra and follows a Russian prince who is torn between joining the revolution and fighting injustice against peasants and Jews. "The Paris Architect" was a finalist for the Dublin Literary Award in 2015, "House of Thieves" was a Target book of the month selection, and "The Fallen Architect" was a finalist for the Nero Award in 2019.

Belfoure still practices historic preservation and has a love for cats, Irish Setters, and his three grandsons. He continues to write and preserve old buildings, including the one shown in the photo. His writing is heavily influenced by his background in architecture, and he has a unique ability to weave historical and cultural elements into his stories, making them both informative and entertaining for readers.