Harvey Page
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.
George Willis, Architect
Shortly after moving to San Antonio in 2016, I encountered this house just a couple blocks from my apartment. Immediately I was struck by the appearance of a full-on Wrightian Prairie House in the heart of San Antonio.
I posted it on Instagram and was immediately informed that this was the Lawrence T. Wright (no relation) house by George Willis. After a day or two I realized Willis’ name had appeared in my book The Architecture of Barry Byrne: Bringing the Prairie School to Europe. Willis had been a draftsman nearly four years when Byrne arrived in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park Studio in 1902.
Willis practiced a few years in California with Myron Hunt and a few more in Dallas before relocating to San Antonio in 1911. Willis is probably best known for his 1928 Milam Building, known as the first fully air-conditioned office building in America. By this time he had adopted the streamlined revival styles of the 1920s, decorating the upper levels of the building’s 21 stories with Spanish Revival terra-cotta.
Willis arrived in San Antonio as a Wrightian, and his houses show the influence up until 1919 or so. Many are attributed to Atlee Ayres, in whose office Willis worked until 1916. Here are a few of the ones we have found:
A couple of years ago I stumbled across this one in Beacon Hill, and I promise you it IS by George Willis and from the same period, c. 1915, even though we haven’t found documentary evidence.
There are a number of other Prairie Style houses that could be from Willis’ time under Ayres or immediately afterwards – here are a few candidates:
By 1919 George Willis has departed from Modernist Prairie style for the revival styles that would dominate the 1920s, as seen in the house below on West Woodlawn in Beacon Hill. A recent article in the Express-News claims that this is the first Spanish Colonial house in San Antonio, and one of the first built with air conditioning.
Willis was a major San Antonio figure by this time, collaborating with Atlee Ayres and Emmett Jackson on such major projects as the Municipal Auditorium and 1926 addition to the Bexar County Courthouse.
Willis worked on the Sunken Garden Theater WPA Project in 1937 with Harvey Smith and Charles Boelhauwe. He continued practicing in San Antonio until his death in 1960 and has left a significant architectural legacy throughout the city.
MAY 2020 UPDATE: A couple of Willis’ postwar works:
It seems the Prairie Style never really went away!
Frank Lloyd Wright buildings I toured last year
I have had the good fortune to serve on the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy Board for the last three years, and this has availed me of several opportunities to tour this great architect’s work.
The living room in Robie House, Chicago, shot by my daughter Felicity.