After encouragement from Cleveland Orchestra founder Adella Prentiss Hughes and music director Nikolai Sokoloff, plans for Severance Hall began to emerge based on a plot of land offered by Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) at a leasing cost of $1.00 per year and potential funds contributed by the general public and local philanthropists. During a gala concert celebrating the Orchestra’s tenth-anniversary, Dudley Blossom, an early benefactor, announced that John L. Severance, president of the Musical Arts Association, and his wife, Elisabeth, had pledged $1 million to the construction of a new hall. In support of an associated fundraising campaign, Blossom and his wife donated $750,000 the following day. Though Elisabeth Severance died in 1929, John Severance was determined to see the project through to its completion and intended for the concert hall to serve as a de facto memorial to his late wife. Despite a collapse of the United States’ economy in 1929, the groundbreaking for Severance Hall was held on November 14, 1929 and Severance’s contribution eventually ballooned to more than $2.6 million. The concert hall was designed by the Cleveland firm of Walker &amp; Weeks, which had also built Cleveland’s Federal Reserve Bank and Public Library. Severance Hall opened on February 5, 1931, hosting a gala concert broadcast live across the radio to mark the occasion.