I was prepping for a King William walking tour for the 65th Nationales Saengerfest (Nord-Amerikanischer Saengerbund) and I noted that the Berman/Kinder House of 1906 on Madison Street was by the architect Harvey Page. The name sounded familiar and I realized I had been in another of his buildings less than a year ago – but it was in Washington, D.C. The Metropolitan Club, a veritable master class in Renaissance Revival.

Page practiced in his hometown of Washington, D.C. from 1880 to 1897, spent a couple of years in Chicago, and settled in San Antonio about 1900, where he practiced and lived until his death in 1934. In addition to that house in King William (which has been altered since his original design) he did several notable buildings here, including the stunning Temple Beth-El (1927) which I see every day in the neighborhood.

I have visited Washington, D.C. a lot, and have run into some of his work there, including the landmarked Harvey L. Page Block near DuPont Circle. His career, like William Carbys Zimmerman in Chicago, spanned the period between Queen Anne (below), the various Classical Revivals of the turn of the century, and the emergence of the modern as seen at Temple Beth-El. Page did a Craftsman Style house in 1906 that hinted at modern, just as Zimmerman was completing the Joseph Downey House in Chicago.

Downey House, Chicago, 1906. I took this picture in 1998.

In San Antonio, Harvey Page contributed some major buildings in addition to Temple Beth-El, like the Great Northern Railway Depot (1907) with its deliberately Mission-inspired campanulate facade and towers, the Mausolus-worthy Greco-Roman Scottish Rite Cathedral (1924) and several houses, including the quirky Clegg House (1902), which is surrounded by San Antonio College.

Despite the one Craftsman Bungalow and Temple Beth-El, Page never did venture too far into Modernism. Most of his mid-1920s houses in rapidly growing Monte Vista and Alamo Heights tended to stick to the historical styles popular at that time. Even our Frank Lloyd Wright-trained George Willis shifted from Prairie Style to historicism by 1921, as detailed in my blog a few years back.

Even in this stone Craftsman from 1906, Page could not resist a little Mission Style flare with the campanulate dormer. He did do a stucco Craftsman at 210 Encino, but it is impossible to photograph. Page died here in 1934 after a productive career. Six of his houses, including the Berman/Kinder, Clegg and his own home at 331 W Woodlawn are including in the San Antonio House Registry.