Our goal is to give property owners and researchers easy access to information about architects and buildings that have shaped Tacoma’s built environment since the 1880s.
Tacoma-born architect Alan Liddle attended Stadium High School. There is an award issued each year in his honor by the Tacoma Historical Society. The Alan C. Liddle Award recognizes individuals and organizations that have significantly contributed to the preservation of Tacoma's historic structures. Alan C. Liddle was a highly regarded architect who provided a strong voice for the arts and for historic preservation in his native city.
Alan Curtis Liddle was born in Tacoma on March 10, 1922, and attended Stadium High School. He graduated in architecture from the University of Washington, served in the Army after the war in Germany and then had an additional year of architectural school in Switzerland, soaking up modernism and architecture of his favorite architect, Alvar Alto. In subsequent years he visited Finland on several occasions to see his built work.
When Alan went into private practice, it was with Bob Jones, a friend from school, between 1957-1968. The University of Washington Marine Sciences building was an award winning product of that partnership. He was in partnership with Robert Jacklin AIA from 1982 until 1998 when he retired.
Alan never aspired to a large practice but preferred smaller projects where he could work closely with clients and enjoy the process of design and coordinating with the craftsmen builders he was fortunate to find. Many clients became good friends. His roots were in Tacoma and he was its constant champion, seeing the potential in its rebirth. It is gratifying that after many years of effort and false starts he lived to see it taking place.
In recognition of his exceptional design talent and his efforts to improve the community through his advocacy of historic renovation and involvement in the arts, particularly the Tacoma Art Museum, he was elected by his fellow architects to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) as well as receiving for the AIA Southwest Washington Chapter's Charles Pearson Public Service Award. To become an AIA Fellow is a special honor that few attain and every member of the American Institute of Architects holds in highest professional regard.
Alan was a past President of the Southwest Washington Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (1967). For many years he was a member of the national AIA’s Committee on Design.
Alan’s intense interest in the importance of good design and his special interest in the preservation and reuse of historical architecture was many years ahead of the preservation movement. He was one of the few voices that spoke out against blanket “urban renewal” that demolished swaths of downtown Tacoma in the 60’s culminating in the demolishing of the Pierce County Courthouse. He realized the history of Tacoma is included in its built fabric and to demolish the buildings is to demolish the physical links to this history. His own office at the corner of Seventh and Pacific Avenue was in a historic 1890’s building he purchased with John Hewitt and renovated into offices. He remained in this office until his retirement.
He spearheaded the establishment of the Tacoma Landmarks Preservation Commission that formalized the process within the city administration of designating historic buildings and districts and helping qualify for the tax breaks that made so much historic preservation possible.
His stand on this issue has been vindicated when we observe that so much of the revitalization of downtown Tacoma is anchored by its historic buildings and neighborhoods, from the Union Depot with its museums and the University of Washington Tacoma to the Old City Hall Historic District.
He designed in a Northwest modern style that did not follow architectural fads, grounded in the materials and environment of the northwest, with respect for its light and views. Even while a student at the University of Washington, he started to build a cabin near the western entrance to Mount Rainier on land owned by his family. Hauling in rocks with an army surplus jeep and spending as much time studying what he was building as it took to build. He learned about construction and developed a great respect for those who can build well and from the heart.
Over more than thirty years he added to it in stages. It is a masterpiece of northwest architecture, fitting into a site at the top of a cliff overlooking the mountains to the south. This cabin was featured on the cover of Sunset Magazine and was used regularly for most of Alan’s life; he enjoyed regular hikes from it until near the end of his life. For his cabin, he received a Twenty-Five Year AIA Honor Award. It is a great building that has stood the test of time. Alan divided off most of the land at the cabin and gave it to the National Park Service in order to protect the view of the entrance to Mount Rainier National Park.
For many years Alan was a board member of the Tacoma Art Museum and a substantial contributor to the new museum, bequeathing his home to the Museum upon his passing. (After arguing successfully for a public stair to the lower parking lot, the stair has been named in his honor.) Alan served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 1953-1954. Architectural historian Michael Houser: “Over the span of his career, Liddle and his associates designed over one hundred residences and more than fifty public buildings, drawing national media attention and winning numerous awards.”
Alan enjoyed traveling to the four corners of the world and the company of lifelong friends. For fifty years he sent a customized Christmas Card featuring his travel and other adventures, always funny, to his friends and clients. Two years before his passing, he sent the last card. It was a compilation card that had miniatures of all forty-nine previous ones, connected to a timeline, with the line “That’s all, Folks!”, spoken from Porky the Pig as a final goodbye to his Christmas Card regulars.
His passion for architecture and life and his integrity in his professional and personal life set a very high standard. Liddle passed away on May 17, 2009, in Tacoma.
Woodroofe & Constable were strong advocates of the new Craftsman style.
Born in England in 1879, Arnott Woodroofe was a draftsman in the office of Williams and Underwood in North Wales. He went to London in 1898 and attended courses at the Architectural Association and the Regent Street Polytechnical School. He also worked briefly with Ralph Nevill, a noted British Arts & Crafts architect. In 1899 he moved to Canada and opened an office in Vancouver, B.C. In 1904 he arrives in Tacoma and becomes head draftsman for the firm of Russell & Babcock.
By 1906, however, Woodroofe joins with the Tuttle Brothers to form a new architectural firm, Tuttle & Woodroofe. A 1906 newspaper article notes that the firm of Russell & Babcock is designing a Swiss-influenced bungalow (1002 N. L St.). A later newspaper article lists the architect as Arnott Woodroofe of Tuttle & Woodroofe. This appears to be the first Tacoma building we can identify with Woodroofe.
Little is known of the Tuttle Brothers, Rollin and Paul, who also arrived in Tacoma about 1904-05. Rollin was the architect, though nothing is known of his training, and Paul, the builder. Their stay was short. In the summer of 1907, Woodroofe bought them out and by 1908 both had left Tacoma. The two firms, Tuttle Brothers and Tuttle & Woodroofe, are responsible for about 45 buildings in Tacoma, almost all residential homes.
In 1908, architect Arnold S. Constable had joined Woodroofe in the new firm of Woodroofe & Constable. The new Park Universalist Church (206 N. J St.) was one of the new firm’s first commissions. Constable had just recently arrived from Britain. He was born in Northumberland in 1885. He studied at University of Durham and then articled with architect John Walton Taylor in Newcastle from 1900 to 1905. He later took coursework at the Royal Institute of British Architects, where he won the King’s Prize and several other honors in 1907. That Constable would come directly to Tacoma from London suggests he may have known or met Woodroofe earlier.
Woodroofe & Constable were strong advocates of the new Craftsman style. Both had recently come from Britain where their architectural training immersed them in British Arts & Crafts movement of the previous 20 years. They arrived in Tacoma just as the new Craftsman style began to dominate American residential architecture. The style was easily adapted to less costly homes that perfectly fit the quasi-rural, rustic vision of the new streetcar suburbs. By 1907 Woodroofe writes a brief article, “Tacoma Architecturally” for a northwest culture magazine, The Coast, where he describes middle-class Tacoma homes as “…somewhat on the order of the California bungalow, without imitating the same.” He pens another article in 1911 entitled “Most happiness in the bungalow” where he lauds the cozy bungalow of perhaps $1000 over the pretentious mansion of $100,000 and proclaims its healthful attributes in a suburban setting as opposed to the crowded cities. These egalitarian, naturist and aesthetic themes were commonly associated with the Craftsman style. Lasting until 1912, the firm of Woodroofe & Constable would build over 60 buildings in Tacoma and Lakewood, almost all residences in the Craftsman style.
In 1913 Constable moves to Seattle where he worked with several architectural firms as well as his own practice. In 1923, he moved to the San Francisco area where he designs a number of churches and institutional buildings for the Catholic Church.
Woodroofe continues working in Tacoma. In 1916 he forms a partnership with Jack D. Griffin and Irwyn Hill. In 1919, however, he moves to Spokane where he continued to practice. He dies there in 1976.
Sources:
Shaw's largest scale project, designed with his brother, Stanley, was the 1922 First United Presbyterian Church in Tacoma.
Frederic Joseph Shaw was born in Sturgis, Michigan on August 21, 1883, to the Rev. Robert P. Shaw (D.D.) and Mary Thornton Shaw. The family moved to Tacoma shortly after his brother, Stanley’s, birth in 1896; Frederic attended Stadium High School for one year. His father served as interim minister in the early 1900s during the organizing of Immanuel Presbyterian Church. Frederic received no further formal education other than through correspondence schools and University of CA extension courses later in his career.
During 1903, Frederic worked as a draftsman for James C. Teague in Seattle and Carl A. Darmer in Tacoma, moving on to work for George Gove from 1906-1909 and C. Frank Mahon from 1910-11. He served in several roles during his tenure with the City of Tacoma from 1911-15. As City Architect, he supervised the design and construction of Engine House #4 at 220 E. 26th Street in 1912. As an engineer, he worked on an irrigation project in Sunnyside in 1914.
Frederic opened his own architectural practice in 1915 or 1916. In 1916, he was engaged by a mining company to redesign the company-owned town of Carbonado. Frederic joined the U.S. Army in 1917 where he served as an artillery captain at coastal stations in the U.S. and in France during WWI. Returning from the war, he went into practice with his brother, Stanley, in 1919, and maintained that partnership until 1929. During that time they designed the 1922 Tacoma First United Presbyterian Church (above) and the 1922 Miller Estate, known as “Milamar,” in Lakewood. In the early 1920s, he also worked as a draftsman for Heath, Gove and Bell. Frederic was elected County Commissioner from the 2nd District of Pierce County in 1923, was re-elected in 1925 and served until 1929 when he moved to Los Angeles. Frederic returned to Tacoma in 1930 to marry Belle E. Shaw in April of that year. The couple had one child, Barbara Helen.
Frederic worked intermittently for the Union Oil Company in California between 1930 and 1952, designing service and marketing stations. He practiced architecture in the San Francisco area between 1936-40, designing all of the McKale service stations in San Francisco. In a 1946 questionnaire for the “Architect’s Roster and/or Register of Architects Qualified for Federal Public Works,” Frederic noted that he possessed a “wide range of experience covering railroad buildings, residences, churches, schools, service stations both retail and wholesale and some hospital work but of no great magnitude.” As of 1946, his largest scale project, designed with his brother, Stanley, was the 1922 Tacoma First United Presbyterian Church at a cost of $85,000.
By 1947, Frederic and his family had moved to Sausalito where he continued his involvement in local politics. In the early 1950s, he worked for the State of California as an architect for the Highway Division. His office was located at 4 Third Street in 1956. That year, Frederic became the chief architect for Henry Doelger, Inc., a large merchant builder in Daly City, CA. In 1961, the year of his death, he was associated with the firms Keenan & Shaw and Hall & Shaw.
Frederic was a lifelong active member of the Presbyterian Church. He was active in the Marin County Historical Society, the San Francisco Mechanics Institute, served as vice president of the local Sons of the American Revolution, as a steering committee member of the Citizen’s Advisory Zoning Committee in Sausalito, and was a past commander of the American Legion. Frederic was an associate member of AIA (American Institute of Architects) for several years in Tacoma and became a corporate member in 1956.
Frederic’s hobbies included cartography and miniature railroads and locomotives. He was an important and active figure in the San Francisco Bay Area railroading community and an author. His published books include Oil Lamps & Iron Ponies: a chronicle of the iron gauges (1949); Little Railways of the World (1958); Casey Jones’ Locker: railroad historiana (1959); Map of common carrier narrow gauge railroads in Colorado since 1870 (1958); and, with Norman Sandley, The Sandley Story (1960).
Frederic Shaw died on December 21, 1961, in St. Paul, Minnesota; his wife Belle, daughter Barbara (Mrs. Walter Bjorkland), and brother Stanley, survived him.
Significant Buildings:
Frederick A. Sexton was a prolific designer, executing a wide variety of building types in numerous styles. His brief five years in Tacoma were productive ones for this young architect.
Frederick A. Sexton was a prolific designer, executing a wide variety of building types in numerous styles. He was born in England in 1851 and immigrated with his family to Minnesota at the age of 9. No information about his early life or education is available, but he is known to have practiced architecture in Tacoma from 1887 to 1891.
During Sexton’s brief time in Tacoma he designed a number of commercial buildings, large residences and, most notably, the main building for Puget Sound University (1890, now demolished). Sexton also is known for having designed two homes that have come to be called “The Sisters” (412 & 414 North C Street). Nearly mirror images of one another and located side by side, they were built just before Sexton left Tacoma. He also designed what was called a “double house” (what we now call a duplex) at 811-813 South 11th Street near the Armory.
In 1891, he moved on to the newly-developing town of Everett, Washington where he made a name for himself as a designer of schools (Monroe School, 1892, demolished), commercial buildings and residences. [For more on his work in Everett, visit Historic Everett.]
Sexton relocated to Seattle and opened his architecture office there in 1900. His works in Seattle include a number of prominent buildings, such as Bay View (later Webster) School in Ballard (1907, now the Nordic Heritage Museum) and the Mueller Wholesale Block (1910, now 101 King Street) in Pioneer Square, which was owned by John Mueller, a brewery executive who had been mayor of Georgetown (Department of Neighborhoods) Sexton's major work of this period was the Georgetown City Hall (1909), which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is a City of Seattle landmark. The date and place of Sexton's death are not known. (Pacific Builder and Engineer 1907; Dietz, Peckham 1979; Ochsner 1994).
Sexton was particularly well known for his residential designs. Perhaps his best known work is the Parker-Fersen House, a 1909 Colonial Revival mansion located just south of Volunteer Park at 1409 East Prospect Street; it is also a City of Seattle landmark. Nearby is the earlier C. L. Roy House (1907, 1104 77th Avenue E,), in the English Arts and Crafts style. He also designed a number of elegant variations on the American Foursquare in Seattle, including the Henry McBride House (1905, 342 West Kinnear Place), R. C. Saunders House at 2707 10th Avenue E, the 1905 E. B. Palmer House. The Rustic, Swiss Chalet style of the Dr. Annie Russell House (5721 8th Ave E) is very different from most of Sexton's single- family residential homes. Dr. Russell was the first female physician in Washington State and the house is on the Historic Register.)
Frederick Sexton married Ella Osborn in 1881 and had several children. In 1894 he left for South Africa in search of gold. After marrying his second wife Clara Poe in 1905. They later moved to Pierce County and he died in Sumner on May 29, 1930 (obituary, The Daily News, June 5, 1930).
Tacoma buildings designed by Frederick A. Sexton:
“Father of Stadium – A Man Who Thinks" ... As he was described by the Tacoma Daily Ledger on July 24th, 1910, Frederick Heath was more than just an architect to his contemporaries – he was a figure of civic admiration who brought longstanding pride to his community.
Born in La Crosse, Wisconsin on April 15th, 1861, Frederick Heath and his two older brothers were quite young when the family moved to Minnesota. Young Frederick had his sights set on a career as a printer and worked in the trade for seven years while learning a bit about drafting on the side from his older brother Sydney, a practicing architect. In Minneapolis, he took up an apprenticeship at age 19 in the office of Warren H. Hayes where he refined his craft and acted as the lead draftsman for ten years. Hayes was most famous for his unique church designs, which likely influenced Heath in his many contributions to Tacoma’s ecclesiastical landscape in later years. In January of 1885, Heath married Mabel L. Fallensbee in St. Paul and two years later they had their first child, Zelma, affectionately called “Zella.”
In the interest of Mrs. Heath’s health, the small family moved to Tacoma in December of 1893, where he would live out his years and earn his fame as the Father of Stadium. Shortly after their move, the Heath family welcomed two sons, Frederick Jr. and Chadwick. He ran a private practice until 1901 when he partnered with architects Ambrose Russell and A. Walter Spaulding. Spaulding left the firm a year later and the remaining partners disbanded in 1903. Heath would not enter into another partnership until 1908 with Luther Twichell, another short endeavor of only two years. Finally, in 1912 Heath was joined by George Gove in a partnership that would last for more than forty years, though their influence would outlive them both. The firm brought on a third partner in 1914, Herbert Bell, an employee who had worked with Heath for the previous nine years.
Heath started working for the Tacoma Board of Education in 1902; records cannot confirm that he was the official school architect but he and his partner, George Gove, were responsible for a number of significant Tacoma schools. Heath designed a unit based system for the construction of schoolhouses which allowed the building to efficiently expand as needed to accommodate more students, such as with Washington Elementary built in 1906. The design purportedly cut alteration costs by twenty percent. It was also in this position that he designed some of Tacoma’s oldest and most beautiful school structures including the Central School (1912 – now the Tacoma Public Schools Administrative Building), Lincoln High School (1913), and, most famously, Tacoma’s Stadium High School.
Originally designed by the firm Hewitt & Hewitt in 1890, the school was intended to be a grand tourist hotel for the Northern Pacific Railroad, modeled after the elegant French Chateau style. Construction halted in the Panic of 1893 due to financial strains and a fire gutted the inside of the structure in 1898, leaving behind a vacant shell for several years. Meanwhile, the city was in desperate need for a high school and purchased the property, commissioning Heath to transform the ruin into an educational masterpiece. Tacoma High School – as it was then called – opened in 1906 and Heath immediately began plans to transform the gulch under the new and imposing structure.
The Stadium that Heath designed to fill the gulch became a source of pride and community engagement even before the structure was built. In fact, Tacomans themselves funded the project almost entirely. In 1908, as the Board of Education began asking for bids for the project, $50,000 had already been pledged by members of the community in anticipation of becoming the home of “the finest stadium in the United States and, in the beauty of the environment, the finest in the whole world.”[1] Heath considered the Stadium to be vital in putting Tacoma on the map as “a pinnacle of desirability for tourist travel beyond the reach of any other city in the Northwest.”[2] The Stadium certainly assisted Tacoma towards this end, hosting Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson in its first 10 years of operation.
As Tacoma progressively grew into the City of Destiny that Heath desired, so did his efforts to put Tacoma on the map. His eye for efficiency led to his invention of a new method of wall construction which quickly became popular along the Pacific Coast and beyond. This method used a particular tile block which cost less to produce and was lighter than brick, yet continued to provide exceptional strength and protection from moisture. Heath received a patent for the design in 1917 and by 1919 had secured rights in 24 other countries with the aim of helping in the reconstruction of Europe devastated by war.
Despite his clear influence abroad and across the nation, Heath’s most prominent and longstanding influence remains here in Tacoma, the city he loved so dearly. As best described by one of his contemporaries, “Mr. Heath believes in the uplifting influence of beauty as seen in architecture and in the adornment of the city through its park and street systems.”[3] It is with this view that Heath dedicated himself and his practice so fully to this community. He served on the Board of Park Commissioners for ten years and as its President for five, guiding the park district through its first years of development on projects including Point Defiance Park. To relieve the congestion on S. 9th & Broadway, Heath proposed the route down today’s Stadium and Ruston Ways to Point Defiance, connecting the North End to downtown through a beautiful yet functional expressway.
Over the course of his 60 years in Tacoma, Frederick Heath designed more than 600 projects in the Pacific Northwest and much more throughout the nation. After 41 years, his partnership with George Gove finally ended with Heath’s death on March 3, 1953, one month short of his 92nd birthday. The “Father of Stadium” is remembered not only for his buildings which make historic Tacoma so beautiful but also for his legacy which inspired a community.
Frederick Heath, along with his wife and children are buried in the Old Tacoma Cemetery in South Tacoma.
Footnotes:
Tacoma Daily Ledger, 12/12/1908, page1: “Board Will Ask Bids on the Stadium”
Tacoma Daily Ledger, 7/24/1910, Stadium Military Tournament Edition, “Frederick Heath Aims at Pair of Big Objectives”
Herbert Hunt & Frank Kaylor, Washington West of the Cascades – Volume III, pg. 344
Significant Buildings
[Research and Narrative completed in 2014 by HT volunteer, Alex Van Putten]
George Gove was very instrumental in the growth and recognition of architecture in western Washington. He is recognized for his role in creating the Tacoma Society of Architects in 1915.
Research conducted January 2015 by Don Erickson for Historic Tacoma
George Gove was born on August 28th, 1870 in Rochester, Minnesota, one of the nine children of Royal, a practicing lawyer, and Nancy Gove. George was educated abroad completing his architectural studies primarily in Paris. Upon his return to America in 1908 he apparently followed the footsteps of his older brother who had arrived in Tacoma back in 1889 and become a partner of the Tacoma Abstract and Title Insurance Company. By 1920, George, according to local census records, was living with Edwin Shattuck in a house he completely owned.(1)
George Gove was also very instrumental in the growth and recognition of architecture in western Washington. He was recognized for his role in creating the Tacoma Society of Architects in 1915 and was the librarian for its Architectural Library. According to his obituary, one of his greatest contributions to his profession was his assistance to architectural students and his sponsoring “design and sketching competitions for architectural craftsman in both Tacoma and Seattle.”(2) He was a member of the American Institute of Architects beginning in 1914, served on the Washington Board of Examiners for Architecture for a number of years, and taught a course of study preparing architects for the state’s examination(3). Noted for his contributions to the profession Mr. Gove was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
Architectural Practice:
Soon after arriving in Tacoma, George had started his own architectural firm where he was the principal architect (George Gove, Architect). Apparently, around the same time, he joined up with the noted Tacoma architect Frederick Heath as a partner in the new firm of Heath and Gove (1908-1914). The architect, Herbert Bell, was later a made a partner of the firm in 1914 but officially the name of the firm was not changed to Heath, Gove and Bell, Architects, until 1919. The firm existed until the death of Frederick Heath in the spring of 1953.(4)
Architectural Works:
It is hard to separate Gove’s work from that of the firm he was a partner in for so many years, Heath, Gove, and later Bell. His name is associated with a number of schools for the Tacoma School District including Lincoln High School (1914, Collegiate Gothic style, based on Eton School in England, see Photo 1, attached). Gove traveled around the United States to study other schools before he and Heath designed Lincoln High School. Other structures of the firm at this time include the Gothic Revival style Central School with its unique eight-story tower (1912) at 401 South Eighth Street and S. Tacoma Ave.; the more subdued Gothic Revival First Baptist Church (1924), now Urban Grace (Photos 2 & 3), was designed as a mixed-use structure with meeting rooms and offices in this four-story stone structure (see Above) located at South Ninth and S. Market Street, downtown; and the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church (1925; Photos 4 & 5), a Gothic Revival style cut stone structure at Sixth Avenue and S. Fife Street. Other structures attributed in large part to Gove include the large Masonic Home in Des Moines, WA (1926), a five-story multi-winged chateau-style structure at 23660 Marine View Drive (see Photos 6 & 7); the South Tacoma Branch Library (1911), the city’s first branch library demolished in 1959; Puget Sound National Bank, downtown Tacoma (1909-1911); Paradise Inn in Mount Rainier National Park (1915-1917); and the two Gothic Revival style buildings on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Thomson Hall (1948) and the adjacent Communications Hall (1951).(5)
Other:
According to newspaper articles at the time(6), Mr. Gove was single and lived his later years on the upper level of the 16-story, 232 foot high National Realty Building (now the Key Bank Center), at Pacific Avenue and S.Twelfth Street and then considered to be a ‘skyscraper’. According to newspapers of the time, he had a lavishly planted roof garden overlooking the growing city on the sixteenth floor. This apparently is the same building where the firm of Heath and Gove Architects had their offices between 1909 and 1916. Mr. Gove, FAIA, died on August 30, 1956, in Tacoma.
Footnotes:
The popular Proctor District is known to many Tacoma residents and visitors, but do we really know Proctor? What or who is it named for? Read on to learn more, from this profile written by Historic Tacoma volunteer, Sarah Hilsendeger.
John Gardiner Proctor was born in April 1854 in Ontario, Canada. According to records, Proctor started practicing in Tacoma in 1885 when he partnered with Charles N. Daniels. Their office was located on Pacific Avenue between 13th and 15th streets in the Olds block. They partnered until 1888.
Next, Proctor worked with Oliver Perry Dennis from 1888 to 1901. During their partnership, they had offices in various locations. In 1889, they were located at 20 Hotel Fife block. In 1890, their office is listed at 1111 Pacific Avenue (the Barlow Catlin building). Later, in 1892 they moved to 528 Washington building. Then, in 1900 Proctor lists his office and residence as 920 South Proctor. He had acquired two acres to build his home in 1890 on what was then Ester Street. It was during this time that Proctor designed the neighboring house for Dennis at 910 South Proctor. These were two of the first homes in the North End of Tacoma. Prior to this, the family home was on South G Street.
His last Tacoma partner was William Farrell. They partnered in 1901 and worked at the National Bank of Commerce Building in Tacoma. The last documented project that they designed together was at 910 South 8th Street in 1908.
Proctor married his wife Zellah, or “Nellie” and had three daughters, Harriet, Margaret, and Zillah. In a 1976 Tacoma News Tribune article, his daughter Zillah Proctor Stevens recalled “During hard times in the 1890s there was no building activity so my father built a house on 40 acres of land on McNeil Island. My sisters and I would hobnob with the prisoners, who, I remember, wore black and white striped suits.”
Proctor was very well known in the community, even designing the church which he was a member of, the Epworth Methodist Episcopal Church in Tacoma. Due to his prominence, the city named a telephone exchange after Proctor. The city also honored him by choosing the name Proctor when Jefferson and Ester Streets were joined during surveying and grading the street system because his house stood on the south end of the street. Considered an “aggressive pioneer” in the field he also served for a period as Washington State Architect.
Proctor died on February 8, 1925, in Puyallup, Washington.
Significant buildings designed by John Proctor include:
Photographs courtesy of the Tacoma Public Library General Photograph Collection.
[Research and narrative completed in August 2013 by HT volunteer, Sarah Hilsendeger.]
Katherine Lockwood Squire, architect for the Tacoma Building Association, was Washington’s first professional female architect and designed more than two-dozen buildings in Tacoma. Very little is known about Ms. Squire. It is thought that her husband may have been Frank O. Squire, the building inspector for the Tacoma Building and Savings Association. Ms. Squire left Tacoma in 1888; a newspaper account from the time period mentions her husband’s illness as the reason for moving.
Until recently, Kate Lockwood Squire, as she was known in Tacoma in the 1880s, was largely a mystery. Then, in 2010, historian Inge Schaefer Horton was able to piece together Kate’s remarkable story that was hidden for so long because of her many moves around the country and the tradition of married women taking their husband’s last name. Kate Lockwood is among the earliest women in America to practice architecture, either as draftsperson or architectural designer. She is the first woman to study architecture at the Cooper Union in New York City, the first woman residential designer on the West Coast, and the first woman to be “architect of record” in Washington State.
Kate was born in 1854 to wealthy Michigan lumberman J.K. Lockwood and his wife Eliza. In 1871, she married Albert E. French, an architect who practiced in Detroit from 1868 to 1920. Like most architects of the time, she acquired her skills through a unique apprenticeship: watching and helping her lover and later husband with his work. The marriage was short, and in 1873 she moved to Pittsburgh, living with an uncle and preparing mechanical drawings for his blast furnace for steel mills. Soon she returned to Detroit where she practiced architecture by designing several fine homes and the First Baptist Church. In 1879, she enrolled in the Cooper Union’s architectural program in New York City, though she would only study a year and not graduate. While in the city, she worked as an interior designer with artist Theodore Baur, did patent drawings for Thomas Edison, and assisted in the design of the courthouse in Charlotte, MI.
In the 1880’s she headed west. By 1887 she established her architectural practice in Tacoma when the new Tacoma Building and Savings Association (TBSA) hired her as a “draughtsman” to modify modest ready-made plans for its working and middle-class members. She quickly gained fame and received several independent commissions for middle-class family homes and a commercial building. According to the 2008 Old Tacoma Historic District nomination, in 1888 Kate designed the home of Augustus Walters, Old Tacoma’s mayor, at 2605 N. Starr; the building no longer stands.
Kate’s stay in Tacoma was short lived. On May 27, 1888, the Tacoma Daily Ledger published the following note:
“Mrs. Lockwood Squire, the able architect of the Tacoma Building and Savings Association, left for San Francisco yesterday on account of the illness of her husband. She has been obliged to give up work for the present and goes south with him and possibly to New York. During her stay here she has made many friends who regret exceedingly to have her leave the city. As an artist and architect she leaves twenty-eight dwellings of her design to stand as a monument for her.”
Sadly, of those 28 homes, only two remain that are clearly identified with Squire: 1012 North Ninth Street in the North Slope Historic District and another at 1010 South Seventh Street (moved from 704 S. J St.). Both are modest homes, 1012 North Ninth (above) was built for $1200.
Her second husband, Frank O. Squire, was a carpenter and inspector for the TBSA. The marriage was short-lived since he died shortly after the couple arrived in California. There Kate appears to have continued her architectural career, being listed as an architect in 1890 in Los Angeles and in San Francisco from 1897 to 1905. Little is known of her work during this period.
In 1891 she married Louis L. Nevins and began working for the Socialist movement, primarily through the Farmer’s Alliance. She was involved in the development of a socialist community, The Co-operative Brotherhood of Winter Island, established in 1893 at the confluence of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers in Contra Costa County. Kate may have designed the four buildings on the island. By 1901 the co-op had failed, but Kate and her husband continued on the island as government lighthouse keepers. After her husband’s death in 1921, Kate found it increasingly difficult to live alone on the island and eventually moved to nearby Antioch where she lived in severe poverty in a stranded boat at the docks. She died in 1943 at the age of 89.
The only known image of Kate Lockwood Nevins is a sketch based on a photo taken in the barn of Winter Island on July 4, 1896 and published in the San Francisco Examiner, 8/16/1896, p. 3.
[Research completed in August 2013 by HT Board Member, Marshall McClintock.]
Borhek was the president of the Tacoma Architects Association for ten years, last serving in 1925 and the vice president of the Washington chapter of American Institute of Architects in 1926, and president of the organization in 1930 and 1931.
Roland Edward Borhek was born in 1883 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He attended Lehigh University and later took a job as Head Draftsman for A. Warren Gould in Boston. When Gould decided to come to Seattle in 1905, Borhek followed him. Under Gould’s wing they designed the American Savings Bank building and the Empire building in Seattle. These were the second and third concrete reinforced structures in the United States. Soon after, he took a position with James Schack who then designed the Mehlhorn building and First United Methodist Church in Seattle.
Borhek came to Tacoma in 1908 and went to work with the Heath and Twichell firm. While working for them they designed the National Realty Building and the First Church of Christ Scientist. By 1910 he decided to go into business on his own. According to the Pacific Builder & Engineer, “doing a job alone appealed to Borhek and seldom does he need outside help.”
In 1914 Borhek married his wife Marie. They had two children, a daughter Barbara and a son named Edward “Bud” who followed in his father’s footsteps and became an architect. In 1920 they purchased the land at 715 North Sheridan that was home to Job Carr’s frame house and tore it down to build a home of his own design.
Borhek was the president of the Tacoma Architects Association for ten years, last serving in 1925 and the vice president of the Washington chapter of American Institute of Architects in 1926. He was also president of the Young Men’s Business Club of Tacoma and the First Congregational Church Brotherhood. While president of the Young Men’s Business Club he assisted in the relocation of the Hudson’s Bay Company structures from Fort Nisqually to Point Defiance Park.
During Borhek’s career, he focused on office buildings, churches, apartments, garages, and schools, while seldom designing residences. When he designed and drew the plans for the Pacific garage it was the first of Tacoma’s automobile showrooms. Borhek retired in 1942 and passed away on May 7th, 1955 in Gig Harbor, Washington.
One of Borhek's most prominent works is the Walker Apartment Building. Robert Walker hired Borhek to design this seven-story apartment hotel building in 1927. The building was designed in a classical revival style. While the building appears rectangular from the street, it is actually L-shaped with a small garden court. At the time this garden court was notable because it was the “very latest idea for an apartment house” and it was “incorporated into all the finer such dwellings” on the east coast. The building had apartment and hotel style accommodations and contained 68 two and three room suites. Each unit had a telephone to reach the janitor or the entryway. Many rooms had Murphy beds, an innovation at the time. The builder, Robert Walker, was the president of Walker Cut Stone Company, which had just leased the quarry at Wilkeson. The light colored Sandstone that faces the Walker Apartments came from Walker’s quarry. It was the first apartment house to be faced with stone in the Northwest, where others were brick. The 75′ x 100′ structure itself is concrete with a reinforced frame. Other notable features include the upper floor balconets and restrained ornamentation. The windows also maintain a uniform pattern of openings and details. They are symmetrical on the St. Helens side of the building and rhythmic at the long leg of Sixth Avenue.
The building is on the Tacoma Register of Historic Places as well as the National Register of Historic Places.
Other Prominent Buildings by Borhek:
[Research and narrative completed in August 2013 by HT volunteer, Sarah Hilsendeger.]
