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James Baldwin
Architect for
First United Methodist Church,
Baldwin was bom in 1888 at Ridge Spring, South Carolina. He graduated
from the University of South Carolina in 1904, and then received
architectural training in New York City. In 1905 he was employed by
Milburn Heister and Company of Washington, D.C. as a draftsman. While
there, he was responsible for work on a railroad station, several
courthouses, office buildings and banks. In 1909 he joined the firm of
Reuben H. Hunt of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
From 1910 to 1914 he worked in
partnership with Christopher Gadsden Sayre, AIA in Anderson, South
Carolina. His work included National Register (NR) courthouses in the
Georgia counties of Bleckley, Lee, Atkinson and Barrow as well as the
Cherokee County Courthouse in North Carolina. He was architect of the
Calhoun Hotel in Anderson, South Carolina (NR), the First Baptist
Church in Tampa; the Community Methodist Church in Daytona Beach; high
schools in Greer and Gafney, South Carolina; the Girls' High School
and Calhoun School, both at Anderson South Carolina. He was also the
architect of the Chestnut Street Methodist Church in Asheville, North
Carolina. He maintained an office in Anderson, South Carolina until
1955.
Howard Lovewell Cheney
Architect for the First Church of
Christ, Scientist (253 5th Avenue North), Cheney was
born in Chicago in 1889 and educated at the Armour (Ill) Institute of
Technology and the University of Illinois. Licensed as both an
architect and an engineer, he was in private practice for most of his
professional career. Cheney did work for the Public Buildings Branch
of the Treasury Department from 1934 to 1942, and for the University
of Illinois from 1938 to 1940 and again from 1946 to 1948. In addition
to the Federal Building in Gary, Indiana, Cheney designed Federal
Buildings in Peoria (Ill) and New Orleans, the Federal Building and
Court of Peace for the 1939 World’s Fair and National Airport in
Arlington, Virginia. Cheney was also supervising architect for the
construction of the Chicago Tribune Tower in Chicago.
Col. Harry F. Cunningham
Most noted locally for his design
of the Dennis-McCarthy Hotel,
Harry Cunningham was born in Washington, D.C., April 15, 1885. He
attended George Washington University, Worcester Polytechnic
Institute, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. In 1907 he
joined the firm of Wood, Donn and Deming, supervising architects of
the U.S. Treasury Department. He enlisted for military service with
the U.S. Army May 13, 1917 and remained in France after the Armistice
to develop reconstruction plans for seventeen villages and one city.
After returning to Washington in 1923, he designed a number of houses
and apartment buildings including The Burning Tree Golf Club.
Cunningham was a professor of architecture 1923-24 at George
Washington University.
Cunningham came to St. Petersburg in
late 1924, shortly after joining noted architect Bertram Goodhue’s
firm in New York as a partner. Goodhue was one of the leaders of
American architecture who sought to create a new national style based
on Beaux Arts methods. His work greatly influenced 1920s and 1930s
skyscraper designs and helped lead the way to the development of the
Moderne and Art Deco styles of architecture. Cunningham's major work
for 1924 was the design of the Dennis Hotel. Shortly after Cunningham
completed the design of the Dennis Hotel, the Goodhue died
unexpectedly on April 24, 1924, before completing the design of his
largest commission, the
Nebraska State Capitol. Cunningham was
selected to complete the tower and interior designs for the Nebraska
Capitol and left for New York, leaving local architect
Frank
Jonsberg in charge of the Dennis-McCarthy Hotel project.
Cunningham returned to St. Petersburg
for the winter of 1925-1926. He was elected president of the Florida
Chapter of the AIA. His major works that winter were the
Mediterranean Revival style Lakewood Elementary School and the
Mediterranean Revival style Salvation Army Citadel.
The winter of 1926-1927 was
Cunningham's last in St. Petersburg. In the spring of 1926 Cunningham
had designed several model homes in the new Lakewood Estates
subdivision. His major commission this winter was the St.
Petersburg Times Building. The plans and elevations of the Times
Building show a 22-story Moderne style tower, closely resembling the
Nebraska State Capitol, flanked by a pair of eight-story wings. Only
one wing was built in 1927 with a facade similar to the
Dennis-McCarthy Hotel. The bulk of Cunningham’s commissions in St.
Petersburg were in the Mediterranean Revival style. All of his local
works, regardless of their style, show the same trends: elimination of
ornament, simplification of massing, and the use of symmetry and
repetition of basic geometric elements. His austere approach to the
Mediterranean Revival style was a marked contrast with the approach
taken by other architects in this area.
Cunningham maintained an office in St.
Petersburg through 1928, but lived full time in New York until
returning to Washington in 1935, where he designed the award-winning
Brazilian Embassy in 1935, and the Heatherington Apartments in 1936.
He retired from architecture in 1939.
Lawrence Murray Dixon
Born in Live Oak Florida in 1901, Dixon
would design at least two houses on Snell Isle’s Brightwaters
Boulevard in the 1930s (430 and 431). Dixon attended but did not
complete his education at Georgia Tech, eventually going to work in
New York with the renown firm of Schultze and Weaver which designed
many of South Florida’s grandest hotels including the Biltmore in
Coral Gables and the Breakers in Palm Beach.
After leaving the firm in 1929 and
settling permanently with his family in Miami, Dixon’s architectural
signature evolved from neoclassicism to Art Deco and Art Moderne in
the mid 1930s; his vast design output would forever shape Miami Beach
in the distinctive style for which it is so famous today. He was one
of a group of American-born architects working in Miami Beach who
synthesized the austere architectural principles of the International
Style with their own brand of modernism which embraced the
ornamentation and exotic lure of tropical Miami Beach. These
architects included Henry Hohauser (1895-1963), Roy France
(1888-1972), Albert Anis (1889-1964). Also Robert Law Weed (1897-1961)
and Russell Pancoast (1898-1972), and John Llewellyn Skinner
(1893-1967). European architects would include Morris Lapidus and
Richard Kiehnel and Igor Polevitsky.
Dixon was the most prolific Miami Beach
designer between 1933 and 1942 involving all types of commercial and
residential buildings from the smallest house to the most lavish
oceanfront hotel. In 1947, he wrote that "over $11 million in building
construction has been erected from my architectural services" and
officially listed 38 hotels, 87 apartment buildings, 220 individual
residences, two housing developments and 33 store buildings.
Henry Dupont
Dupont was born in 1870, the son of
Aristide and Mary M. Dupont. His schooling and architectural
training are unknown, although Harold Anderson, who worked in his St.
Petersburg office in the 1920s, says Dupont was trained at the
Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. DuPont started his career in
Indianapolis where he was secretary and treasurer of the local
affiliation of the American Institute of Architects. Having wintered
frequently in the city and prepared designs for buildings such as the
Veillard House, Dupont moved to St. Petersburg full time in
1914 to embark on an active career. During World War I Dupont was
employed by the government in Key West where he assisted in building
an Army air base. He also designed the submarine base for the Navy at
Key West.
During the 1920s, Henry Dupont designed
some of St. Petersburg’s larger buildings and many houses. His work
was never as prolific as some firms in the area, because he kept a
small office with only three or four draftsmen and did all of his own
mechanical and electrical design. His most important work in this area
was the Don Cesar Hotel on St. Pete Beach in the mid-1920s. After
initial plans developer Thomas Rowe fired Dupont because the hotel was
"too plain." The project was finished by Carlton Beard and Thomas
Rowe. Dupont also designed the Casa de Muchas Flores, built on
the water side of Park Street in the "Jungle" area of west St.
Petersburg.
M. Leo Elliott
Elliott was born in 1886 in
Woodstock, New York. He attended Cooper's Institute in New York City
and received training at the New York City firm of Welch, Smith &
Provost. Early in his career he helped design buildings for the
Jamestown Exposition of 1907 in Norfolk, Virginia. At the age of 21,
he moved to Tampa and formed a partnership with Bayard C. Bonfoey.
They designed the Tampa YMCA (1909), Centro Asturiano (1914) and Tampa
City Hall (1915).
The partnership was dissolved in 1917
and he then created the firm of M. Leo Elliott, Inc., Architects and
Engineers. Elliott then designed the Italian Club (1917) and Cuban
Club (1918) in Ybor City. In 1925, the firm was doing projects all
over Florida, maintaining a St. Petersburg office. Carl Atkinson Sr.
was manager of St. Petersburg office during the 1920s. During the peak
of the land boom, the firm employed six structural engineers,
forty-six draftsmen, and seventeen site inspectors. One of the firm’s
major projects in St. Petersburg includes the 1926
Ninth Street
Bank and Trust designed in the Neoclassical Revival style.
Many of Elliott's notable projects in
Tampa designed during this era remain on Davis Island, in downtown
Tampa and Temple Terrace. Other important buildings in Tampa designed
by Elliott include the Masonic Temple, the Scottish Rite Temple and
the First National Bank. He also designed Sarasota High School. In
1946 the firm became Elliott & Fletcher. Elliott retired from practice
in 1954 and died on August 18, 1967.
George Feltham
George Feltham was born in 1874 in
Shefuel, Shropshire, England. The son of George and Mary Feltham,
George Feltham came from a long line of architects. He came to the
United States and studied architecture in Atlanta, Georgia under
DeWitt Bruen. George Feltham started his practice in Savannah
designing estates for winter residents in Thomasville, Georgia. Coming
to Florida in 1895, he first lived in Ocala, where he was associated
in a business with McIver and Kevin McKay. Feltham eventually moved to
St. Petersburg in 1913.
After a brief partnership with
Edgar
Ferdon, AIA, with offices in the American Bank & Trust Co.,
building, Feltham established his own office in 1918. Between 1925 and
1927, his office was located at the Green-Richman Arcade, which
he designed. Among the many other buildings Feltham designed in St.
Petersburg between 1913 and his death in 1927 are the
Ponce de Leon
Hotel, Lantern Lane Apartments, Palais Royale, Sunset Hotel, Elks
Club, Mark Dundee Hotel, Hotel Miller, Lakeview Apartments, New Hunt
Apartments and the First Baptist Church. Feltham died in St.
Petersburg, on May 9, 1927.
Edgar Ferdon
Edgar Ferdon was born in Englewood,
New York in 1869. He visited the St. Petersburg area in the 1890s,
most likely to visit his father, who lived in the city. In 1892,
although not a permanent resident, Ferdon designed the Chautauqua
Villa, the first house to be built on the north side of the city (at
the northeast comer of First Avenue and Second Street). He moved to
the City permanently in 1903 from Summit, New Jersey to become a
permanent resident and was probably St. Petersburg’s first
professional architect, locating his office at 319 Central Avenue.
Edgar Ferdon had an important impact on
Downtown St. Petersburg and the rest of the City in the first three
decades of the twentieth century. Ferdon designed several important
buildings in the City including the American Bank and Trust Building
in the 300 block of Central Avenue, where his office was located,
First National Bank (Florida Bank and Trust) in the 400 block of
Central Avenue, the Crislip Arcade at 645 Central Avenue, the Rex
(Cameo) Theater at 169 Central Avenue, Harrison Hardware Building and
the First Congregational Church. Among these buildings only the
Crislip Arcade and First Congregational Church remain – and only the
Church is a designated historic landmark. Ferdon also designed the
American Maid Ice Cream Building located south of downtown on Salt
Creek.
Ferdon was also associated for several
years in the mid 1910s with noted local architect George Feltham, who
would later design the Green-Richman Arcade, the
Ponce de
Leon Hotel and First Baptist Church, all locally designated
historic landmarks. During the 1920s, Ferdon designed many attractive
residences on Snell Isle and in the Old Northeast area, while also
designing commercial buildings. During the peak of his career in St.
Petersburg, Ferdon lived with his wife Florence and their four sons in
their home on Tangerine Avenue South near Ninth Street. Ferdon died
from a stroke on May 2, 1932, at his home at 2345-1/2 First Avenue
North in Historic Kenwood.
Alfred Lowther Forrest
Forrest was the consulting
architect for the Municipal Utilities Building (now City Hall)
which was built during the Depression under a Works Project
Administration grant. Born in London in 1859, Forrest was a student in
the Kensington Art Schools of London and during the period served as
an apprentice in the office of noted church architect, Charles Inness.
After his graduation he entered the offices of Edward L’Anson, at the
time President of the Royal Institute of British Architects and
Institution of Surveyors. Forrest later moved to Boston where he
worked for the firm Blackhall and Newton, then moving first to New
York City and afterwards Baltimore.
In Baltimore he was first associated
with the firm of Baldwin and Pennington, one of the most prestigious
architectural firms in the country. In 1908 Forrest opened his
own practice and built the Macht Building in Baltimore, a local
register landmark in a National Register district. Other buildings in
Baltimore designed by Forrest include the 1921 Purnell Art Company in
the Cathedral Hill National Register District, the New and
Victoria theaters. He also designed the opera houses in Winchester,
Virginia and Staten Island. Forrest moved to St. Petersburg in
1936 after a long career in the north and designed the Municipal
Utilities Building at the age of 80. He died in Largo in 1951.
William Ittner
Designer of the Tomlinson Center and
Mirror Lake High School on Mirror Lake and
St. Petersburg
Central High School, William Butts Ittner was a nationally
recognized architect of education facilities. Born in St. Louis,
September 4, 1864, he received his early education in the public
schools of the city, graduated from the Manual Training School of
Washington University, and graduated from Cornell University’s
architecture program in 1887.
Ittner began his career in 1888 by
entering the office of the architectural firm of Eames & Young of St.
Louis and remained a year before establishing an office of his own. He
maintained his office until 1897 when he became Commissioner of School
Buildings for St. Louis, serving in that capacity until March 1910,
when he was selected Architect of the Board of Education. He designed
all the public school buildings of the City of St. Louis during this
time, including the McKinley, Soldan, Yeatman, Sumner and Cleveland
High Schools and the Harris Teachers' College. His school
architecture, owing to its plan efficiency and beauty of design,
brought him national and international recognition, and he had to his
credit some five hundred schools in 115 communities and twenty-nine
states.
He was architect for many notable
buildings in St. Louis for other than school use, such as the Scottish
Rite Cathedral; the St. Louis Unit of the Shriners' Hospital for
Crippled Children; Neighborhood Association, St. Louis' first
settlement house; two buildings for the Central Institute for the
Deaf; and the Continental Life Insurance Building, a twenty-three
story office building on Olive at Grand. He was a member and
vice-president of the St. Louis Plaza Commission, which expended
$16,000,000 of the $87,000,000 bond issue voted in 1923 for city
buildings and improvements.
His work brought him several awards.
The American Institute of Architects elected him to Fellowship and a
medal was presented him for marked and worthy achievement in the
design and construction of school buildings by the St. Louis Chapter
of the Institute. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of
the American Institute of Architects and in other official capacities.
He was President of the St. Louis Architectural Club in 1897-90 and
President of the Architectural League of America in 1903-04. And he
was also a life member of the National Educational Association.
Glenn Q. Johnson
Born in Chicago, Johnson
(1909-1999) was was responsible for many of St. Petersburg’s modern
masterpieces including the Pinellas County Judicial Center (one of the
city’s only examples of the Brutalist architectural style), the St.
Pete Beach Library, the Snell Isle Shopping Center, North Shore Pool
and the Sebring Building. He also designed about a dozen schools,
including Gibbs High and Azalea Middle School in St. Petersburg, Oak
Grove Middle School in Clearwater and Oakhurst Elementary in Largo.
Johnson received his education at Crane
College, Armour Institute of Technology and Atelier Nelson. During the
Second World War, Johnson was the director of a division of Douglas
Aircraft, a major supplier of war materiel. In 1952, he came to St.
Petersburg and joined George Ely as a land developer, and it is with
Ely that Johnson developed his locally-famous "Bird Cage" homes along
Pinellas Point Drive and 69th Avenue South. The homes were
built with the main living areas on the second floor and the bedroom
and bathroom on the ground floor. The porches on both floors were tied
together with floor-to-ceiling screens to allow outdoor living free of
insects. Johnson oriented the homes to the southeast to catch the sun
in the winter and to take advantage of cross ventilation which was
aided by jalousie windows. Bedrooms also had wooden jalousies to allow
ventilation as did closet doors.
Frank Jonsberg
Jonsberg was the supervising architect
for Princess Martha Hotel for Boston firm of James H. Ritchie
and Associates. Though retiring to St. Petersburg in 1918, Jonsberg
was a partner with the firm, having joined it when it was founded in
1909. Mason asked Jonsberg to take the project when the first
architect hired for the project was fired. The Boston office of the
firm did the design work, including the interior decoration, and
produced the finished plans and specifications. Jonsberg was also
involved in the design of the St. Petersburg Woman's Club and
the Dennis-McCarthy Hotel. Jonsberg's other local
projects include the 1925 Fifth Avenue Baptist Church and is credited
with assisting Henry L. Taylor with the design of the
Jungle
Country Club Hotel.
Phillip Kennard
Born in Orlando on December 29,
1890, Kennard worked as an architect with his father in the firm of
Francis J. Kennard and Son located in Tampa. The firm was responsible
for the design of West Coast Title Company headquarters (now the
Municipal Services Building) in downtown St. Petersburg in 1926. In an
article announcing the opening of the building the St. Petersburg
Times noted the firm’s 35 years of experience and lauded them as
"pioneer architects of the west coast of Florida."
In 1938 Philip Kennard established an
independent architectural practice in downtown St. Petersburg at 302
Central Avenue. Among the projects he designed in the 1930s and 1940s
are the Carleve Hotel and Nautical Apartments in downtown and the
Royal Theater. During the mid-1950s he was the architect for
numerous schools for Pinellas County. Among these were Northeast High
School, Boca Ciega High School, 74th Street Elementary
School and 16th Street Junior High School. He died in St.
Petersburg on September 18, 1956 and is buried at the Royal Palm
Cemetery.
Richard Kiehnel
Kiehnel (1870-1944) was a
German-born architect who designed the Snell Arcade. Called the
"Father of Miami’s Distinctive Architecture," Kiehnel is credited with
introducing the Mediterranean Revival style to Florida through his
design of El Jardin (National Register) in Miami in 1917.
Designing the mansion for a Pittsburgh steel tycoon, Kiehnel departed
from the Mission style that had only recently made its appearance in
Florida in Homestead’s 1914 Public School and wrought an elaborate
antiquity into the house using aging techniques to get the desired
effect. Kiehnel would elevate Pinellas County’s association with
Mediterranean Revival through his designs of the Rolyat Hotel in
Gulfport (now Stetson College of Law) and the Snell Arcade in St.
Petersburg.
Kiehnel would collaborate with his
partner John Elliot in the firm Kiehnel and Elliot in designing
Mediterranean Revival buildings in Coral Gables and Art Moderne
buildings in South Florida, especially Miami Beach during the 1920s
and 1930s. Some of the latter include the Carlyle Hotel on Miami
Beach, the 1924 Scottish Rite Masonic Temple on the Miami River
(thought to be the first Art Deco building in area. He also designed
the Annie Russell Theater, a Romanesque Revival on the campus of
Rollins College in Winter Park, which is listed on the National
Register of Historic Places.
Addison Mizner
The"world famous architect" was
responsible for the design of one home on the west coast of Florida –
the Casa Coe da Sol in St. Petersburg. During the 1920s Addison Mizner was known for a distinctive interpretation of Spanish
architecture. Brought to Palm Beach from New York in 1918 as the guest
of Paris Singer (heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune), Mizner
spurned the northern architectural styles he found in Palm Beach and
turned to an architectural style he thought suitable for the tropical
setting of Florida. He, with the financial support of Singer,
introduced the architecture which would eventually become synonymous
with the rich of South Florida in the 1920's - the Mediterranean
Revival style. Placing emphasis on flat, simple surfaces with rhythmic
but random window placement, asymmetrical plans, loggias, and an
integration of exterior design and interior decoration, Mizner
designed such Palm Beach landmarks as the Everglades Club (1918), Via
Mizner (1924) and the Embassy Club (1928) (now the Society of the Four
Arts).
Mizner's acquaintance with Spanish
sixteenth and seventeenth century design came at the early age of
seventeen when his father served as a United States ambassador in
Central America. Three years later Mizner attended the University of
Salamanca in Spain. The red tile roofs, towers and arcaded entrances
and windows incorporated in his architectural designs recreated the
atmosphere that Mizner came to know and love during his youth. Mizner,
unlike most of his contemporaries, went one step further in designing
in the Spanish mode in Florida. Due to the World War I shipping
embargo and the unacceptable quality of American made roof tile,
Mizner decided to manufacture his own roof and floor tiles and also to
produce ironwork and furniture. In 1918 with help from Paris Singer,
he started the firm "Las Manos" (handcrafted) in West Palm
Beach. Mizner eventually bought out Singer's share in the company and
later renamed Las Manos, Mizner Industries, Incorporated. Over the
years and due to its continuous success, his industry expanded - light
fixtures, pottery and stone detailing were also produced. He even
created his own "antiques" by purposely cracking stonework and rusting
wrought iron.
Russell Thorn Pancoast
Architect and grandson of Miami
Beach mogul John A Collins, Pancoast (1898 - 1972) designed at least
three buildings in St. Petersburg, 222, 415 and 831 Brightwaters Blvd
on Snell Isle. He also designed the Miami Beach Library and Art Center
(now the Bass Museum of Art) considered by many to be the city’s first
Art Deco building on the island. Along with L. Murray Dixon and other
notable architects, Pancoast would help shape the architectually
exotic Art Deco landscape of Miami Beach. Pancoast also designed
buildings on the University of Florida campus including The Hub
(1950).
Archie Parish
Responsible for designing the
Downtown St. Petersburg YMCA, Parish studied at the Dunwoody
Institute School of Design and then attended extension courses at the
University of Minnesota. Although the design is attributed to the firm
Woolpert & Brown, whose Clarence Brown was a professor of Parish’s at
University of Minnesota, the Mediterranean Revival style
building was Parish's first major assignment after he arrived here in
1924 followed soon after by the YMCA. The firm only operated in St.
Petersburg for 1925 & 1926. In 1927 R. Myran Woolpert left St.
Petersburg, but Clarence J. Brown remained, and in 1929 the firm of
Brown and Parish was formed. Brown and Parish work together until 1933
when Clarence J. Brown moved from St. Petersburg.
Parish career would span several
decades. He designed the administration building for St. Petersburg
Junior College on 5th Avenue North and 66th Street North and was
associate architect on the Jordan Park Housing Project. Other projects
to bear his stamp were the nurses home at Mound Park Hospital (now
Bayfront Medical Center), Christ United Methodist Church (467 First
Avenue N) and the First Presbyterian Church (701 Beach Dr. NE). He
also worked on additions to the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Court
in the 1940s and designed the 1950 addition to the YWCA building
located at 653 Second Avenue South. Mr. Parish was a fellow of the
American Institute of Architects and a president of the Florida State
Board of Architects.
Peter Perkins
Designer of the remodeled Trinity
Presbyterian Church (now Happy Workers Day Care) in 1948, Perkins was
a prominent Affican American contractor. He also built the additions
to the Fannye A. Ponder Council House in 1952 and was called
upon in the late 1940s to provide instruction in carpentry at Gibbs
High School. There he directed the building of vocational buildings
and a gymnasium-auditorium for school and community use. Originally
from Bainbridge, Georgia, he lived in St. Petersburg for 57 years. He
died in 1980.
Neel Reid
Designer of the
Alexander Hotel
and Alexander Bank (now State Theater), Reid was born in
Alabama in 1885, but moved with his family to Macon, Georgia in 1903.
After graduating from high school, Reid apprenticed with Atlanta
architect Willis F. Denny. From 1905-1906, he attended Columbia
University’s School of Architecture in New York and spent a short time
in Paris at the Ecole de Beaux Arts. Reid returned to New York
in late 1907 where he worked as a draftsman in the architectural
offices of Dane and Murphy. In 1909 he returned to Atlanta where he
would spend he rest of his career and opened an office with Hal Hentz,
whom he met while working for Denny, and Godfrey L. Norman, a
Swedish-born architect with an established practice in Atlanta. After
Norman’s death, the firm was joined by Rudolph Adler and operated
under the name of Hentz, Reid and Adler until Reid’s death in 1926.
Reid is claimed to have been one of the
best exponents of eclectic and revival architecture in the South
during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Although the
bulk of Reid’s important work is found in Georgia, particularly around
Atlanta, he designed buildings in other states as well including
Massachusetts and Oregon. Florida was particularly well represented
with at least nineteen structures designed between 1912 and 1926, five
in St. Petersburg. Of these, only the Alexander Hotel and the
Alexander National Bank remain.
George Stuart
Co-designer of the
Open Air Post
Office, Stuart was born in Glasgow, Scotland on November 26, 1856,
before moving to with his family to Geulf, near Toronto, Canada. He
was educated at Hellmuth College in London, Ontario and served four
years apprenticeship to architects in Toronto. As captain in the 19th
Winnipeg Battalion of the Canadian Militia, Stuart fought Sioux and
Blackfeet Indians in Canada’s last Indian War and barely survived an
arrow wound in the neck. He lived in Winnipeg for four years before
moving to Dallas, Texas, then Atlanta, until finally taking up
residence in St. Petersburg with his wife Marie Cogdon Stuart. In St.
Petersburg, he designed many homes and buildings in the city including
the Open-Air Post Office and the St. Petersburg Yacht Club, both built
in 1916. He lived at 115 3rd Avenue NE from 1912 to 1919
and at 1803 Beach Drive NE from 1920 until his death in 1937. Stuart
was preceded to his grave by both his wife in 1935 and son, who had
worked as a draftsman.
Henry Taylor
Henry Taylor was born in 1884 and
came to St. Petersburg in 1921 with his wife, Gladys, to run the
southern branch of the Boston partnership Richey, Parsons, and Taylor.
He designed several prominent St. Petersburg buildings including the
Vinoy Park Hotel, St. Mary’s Church, Southside Junior High
School, The Jungle Hotel (Admiral Farragut),
Mercy
Hospital, Comfort Station, Jungle Prada and the demolished
Florida Theater, which was the first air-conditioned theater in St.
Petersburg. In addition, Taylor was chairman of the group of
architects who designed Jordan Park, St. Petersburg’s first public
housing project. Under the Public Works Administration, he designed
and supervised construction of the Bradenton Post Office, a $60,000
school in Yankeetown, and the high school and civic center building at
Inverness. In 1940, the Taylors moved to Washington, D.C., where he
worked for the Supervising Architect’s Office, Bureau of Public
Buildings. He died in Arlington, Virginia in 1958.
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