Field Trip: St. Petersburg, FL

In October, a wrecking crew demolished the former Pheil Hotel (410-424 Central Avenue, 1916-23). Built by an early St. Petersburg mayor and his heirs,  the eleven-story building became a bank when First National acquired it circa 1959. During the 1960s, architects attached an aluminum brise soleil to unify it with an adjacent property, the former Central National Bank (400-406 Central Avenue, 1911-12).

Attempts to save the two structures failed in early 2016.  Read St. Petersburg Preservation, Inc.'s synopsis here.

Image above: 410-424 Central Avenue, St. Petersburg, Florida, as photographed 10.26.2016 by K. Rylance.

Goblet Tanks (1917)

100 years ago, the Roger W. Hunt & Company Employees' Bulletin reported on the use of reinforced concrete in the design of water tanks along the Gulf Coast. Featuring an image of the tallest tank, located at Bay Minette, Alabama, the Bulletin drew its report from Modern Building. Measuring 80 feet from ground to tank bottom, the supporting form emulated the stem of a drinking goblet. Tested by a June 29 hurricane, the Bay Minette goblet tower quickly became an engineering marvel. Wealthy coastal property owners sought information from Leonard Henderson White (1882-1962), an engineer who developed the method for his Concrete Steel Construction Company of Birmingham, Alabama.

Some Miami patrons despaired at the goblet tank's austerity, and hired prominent architects to modify White's method with neoclassical ornamentation. August Geiger (1887-1968) developed a 100,000 gallon tank at Alton Beach and Harold Hastings Mundy (1878-1932) utilized reinforced concrete on a combined tank and observatory for the John H. Eastwood Estate.

Dothan, Alabama's Dixie Standpipe (1897) was added to the National Register this month.

Image above:  "Interesting Things in Print." Employees' Bulletin [Roger W. Hunt & Company]. 4:3 (January 1917): p. 12.

TBT: 1960's Motel Culture

Cape Coral, Florida will be celebrating its SIXTIETH birthday in 2017. In the spring of 1969, my grandparents stayed at the modernist Nautilus Motel  and Garden Apartments.

There were other Nautilus Motels in Treasure Island and Daytona Beach, Florida.

Images above: Laura Mae Rylance at the Nautilus Motel and Garden Apartments. May 1969. Private collection.

The Nautilus Motel and Garden Apartments. 1965. As viewed 9 April 2015 via "About Coral Gables." URL: http://www.secretplacesflorida.com/capecoral/about.html

Diffusion: Store Fronts

In 1908, the George L. Mesker Company of Evansville, Indiana announced the diffusion of its products nationwide. Touting the hundreds of its storefronts on a map of the continental United States and including Bermuda (shown above), Mesker claimed his enterprise was the largest such establishment in the country. It specialized in inexpensive two-story fronts decorated with galvanized iron cornices and pediments and cast iron sills and columns.

Mesker also provided services to architects and employed architects to assist prospective builders. Boasting 104 fronts in Alabama, the company worked with architect L.E. Marley on the Brockton storefront represented above.

For the South, Mesker's products were especially popular in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. 178 Mississippi structures featured Mesker iron, including Neff and Owen's storefront in Osyka, shown above  Its general plan No. 7011 (below) was used for the Osyka Bank on Railroad Avenue.

Images:  George L. Mesker & Co.  Store Fronts. Evansville, Indiana: The Company, 1908. Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

NEW! Maurice Singer Finding Aid

The Southeastern Architectural Archive (SEAA) recently finalized the processing of the Maurice Singer Office Records. The collection consists of architectural renderings, specifications and lot surveys associated with New Orleans architect Maurice Singer (1922-1980), who practiced in southeastern Louisiana from 1946-1980. His office records include project drawings developed by his early firm, Piqué and Singer, established in collaboration with New Orleans architect Harold Eugene Piqué (firm active 1946-53). Singer’s job files also contain copies of architectural renderings created by earlier and contemporary New Orleans architects whose structures he renovated or altered.

Read more here.

Image above: Maurice Singer, architect.  Blitz Furniture Store. 2600 St. Claude Avenue. Detail of Showroom. Circa 1957. Maurice Singer Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

NEW! Koch & Wilson Finding Aid

The Southeastern Architectural Archive (SEAA) recently finalized the processing of the Koch and Wilson Office Records. The expansive collection consists of architectural records and correspondence files associated with the partnership of Richard Koch and Samuel Wilson, Jr., as well as the earlier partnership of Charles R. Armstrong and Richard Koch. Also included are independent projects undertaken by Richard Koch and Samuel Wilson, Jr., as well as copies of architectural drawings by other architects whose buildings Koch and Wilson altered.

The Koch and Wilson practice became one of the most significant preservation firms of the twentieth century, undertaking the restoration of the French Market, the Pitot House, the Pontalba Apartments, Gallier House and the Ursuline Convent. Additionally, the architects produced a significant number of contemporary residences informed by French, British and American architectural traditions. Although primarily associated with Louisiana and Mississippi preservation, the firm’s output extended across the southeastern United States and was not exclusively devoted to historic renovations and adaptations. Koch and Wilson completed drawings for projects in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas; and the partners developed modernist designs, such as those for Metairie cemetery’s gates and fountain (1961-63). Their partnership continued until Koch’s death in 1971; since then, the firm has continued to operate under the name “Koch and Wilson, Architects.”

During the early 1970s, Samuel Wilson, Jr. prepared a series of National Register of Historic Places nomination forms for the U.S. General Services Administration. His research files included photographs, sketches and narratives associated with the histories of various Alabama and Mississippi federal buildings, including the James Knox Taylor (1857-1929) Selma Post Office (1908-09, shown above).  These documents are included in the Koch and Wilson Office Records.

Read more about the firm and see an inventory of its projects here.

Image above: Koch and Wilson, Architects. Selma, Alabama Federal Building and Court House; Old Post Office Building. Photograph by Samuel Wilson, Jr.  1974. Koch and Wilson Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Curt Teich Postcard Archives

The Curt Teich Postcard Archives is available through the Illinois Digital Archives portal. Curt Teich (1877-1974) was a German immigrant printer who settled in Chicago, Illinois and became the world's largest producer of advertising postcards, including his Curteich-Art Colortone prints.

The digital collection includes nearly 2000 postcard images of southeastern U.S. States, with some 200 images of greater metropolitan New Orleans.

We came across this 1940's postcard depicting New Orleans architect Rathbone DeBuys' Howard Flint Ink Company building, which was erected in 1932 by the Hortman-Salmen Company at 1041 S. Jefferson Davis Parkway. The structure is still standing, operating as World Ship Supply Incorporated.

Image above:  [Rathbone DeBuys, architect]. Factory of the Howard Flint Ink Company. Chicago: C.T. Art Colortone, 1940s. Courtesy Curt Teich Postcard Archives via the Illinois Digital Archives.

Field Trip: San Antonio, TX

What with the recent disappointments regarding Louis Lehle's Dixie Brewery on Tulane Avenue, the near-completion of the rehab of August Maritzen's Pearl Brewery [AKA San Antonio Brewing Association] in San Antonio by Roman and Williams was inspirational.

Over the course of his career, Chicago architect August Maritzen (fl. 1890s) worked on nearly eighty breweries in Canada, South Africa & the United States, including the Florida Brewing Company (Tampa FL).  He trained in the office of Fred W. Wolf, who had partnered with Louis Lehle from 1889-1894.(1) By 1896, he claimed to have received brewery contracts from nearly every state in the union.(2) His Pearl Brewery ceased operations in 2001.

This year, the building will reopen as a 146-room luxury hotel.(3)

Images above: Pearl Brewery, San Antonio, Texas, as photographed 13.02.2014 by K. Rylance; Dixie Brewing Company, New Orleans, Louisiana, as photographed 30.03.2014 by K. Rylance.

(1)Susan K. Appel. "Pre-Prohibition American Breweries." Journal of the Brewery History Society 136 as viewed online at: http://www.breweryhistory.com/journal/archive/136/AppelColour.pdf

&

Lynn Pearson. "Ale and Farewell: The German Style of Brewery Architecture." Brewery History 123 (Summer 2006) as viewed online at:  http://www.breweryhistory.com/journal/archive/123/Architecture.pdf

(2)"The New Brewery." The Plain Dealer (25 February 1896): p. 5.

(3)Valentino Lucio. "Development at the Pearl Heating Up." My SA (6 February 2013) as viewed online at: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Development-at-the-Pearl-heating-up-4254393.php

Graveley's Arch

In 1930, a Tulane University civil engineering graduate named Eugene Cenas Graveley († Costa Rica 1943) patented a welded steel roof construction method. He founded a company based on the technique and established offices in New Orleans (2126 Poland Street),  Houston and Orlando.

He stressed that his arch construction method was particularly well suited to the tropics:

"This is the only type of Construction which has withstood the TROPICAL HURRICANES 100% unhurt despite the centers of two in one month (including the most destructive one on record) passing through a nest of our Buildings."(1)

He recommended its use for auditoriums, gymnasiums, churches, dance pavilions, theaters, movie houses, railroad stations, hangars, automobile garages, dock sheds, cotton and sugar houses, machine shops, and warehouses.

His earliest buildings were automotive garages in Louisiana, with the first -- a S. Rampart Street structure designed by New Orleans architect Martin Shepard for the Rhodes Undertaking Company -- requiring a tie rod. After stress tests conducted on his building sites and at Princeton University boosted Graveley's confidence, his designs abandoned tie rods altogether.

If  you want to see a Gravely Arch in New Orleans, visit United Machinery at 2530 Canal Street. The extant structure is what remains of the engineer's Felix Garage, shown above.

(1)The Arch Construction Co., Inc. The Resurrection of the Oldest Type of Building Construction: The Arch. New Orleans: Eugene Graveley, 1929. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries. NEW! View full document via the Internet Archive's Building Technology Heritage Library here.

Images from publication cited above.

Lazy Susan Tanning Beds

Portable, revolving tanning beds constructed of sugar cane bagasse? Indeed, there were such things . . . invented by a snowbird newspaperman who became a sun-cure proponent.

"Sun-bathing de luxe in the privacy of your own little solarium is the latest fad among the winter residents of St. Petersburg, Florida, the winter resort famous the world over for its sunshine.

Obtaining a coat of tan on the beaches is no longer sufficient for those who believe in the health-giving qualities of the sun's rays.  It remained for A.D. Brewer, former Indiana and Vermont newspaperman, to devise a method of taking an 'all-over' sun bath, hardly possible even in the skimpiest of modern bathing suits.

Mr. Brewer, having been cured of a serious ailment through the application of ultra-violet sun rays, some years ago became a sun-bath enthusiast and perfected the solaria now being used in St. Petersburg.

The tiny individual houses which compose the solaria are constructed entirely of Celotex -- excepting the floors -- with adjustable roofs and windows of Celloglass, a glass which admits ultra-violet rays that do not penetrate ordinary window glass.

Mounted on a sort of pivotal arrangement, the little houses revolve with a slight pressure of the hand on a corner, thus assuring the occupant the full rays of the sun at all times.

All openings are screened to exclude annoying insects, and small windows, placed low down on the sides, admit cross-currents of air. The inside of the houses are painted white with the finishing strips in green.  A spotless white cot and stool, a mirror and a rug are the furnishings.

The units are portable and are shipped to all parts of the United States."

As reported in "Sun Bath Houses of Celotex New Fad in Florida."  The Celotex News 3:10 (April 1930):  pp. 1, 4.

Key West Gingerbreads

The Key West Public Library has recently digitized its collection of tracings of historic Key West gingerbread.   Created by local historian-preservationist Howard England (1914-1999), the tracings and related photographs are indexed by street address and location of the gingerbread.

Ringling's Isles

In 1924, Ohio landscape architect John J. Watson (1876-1950) was hired by circus tycoon John Ringling (1866-1936) to design "Ringling Isles" on four western Florida keys: St. Armand's, Coon, Lido, and Otter. Harding Circle, at the center of St. Armand's Key, was to be the jewel in the crown of this enormous venture consisting of resorts, a casino, and a subdivision of fine residences. When Ringling purchased St. Armand's Key in 1923 it had been uninhabited; Watson's plan bifurcated the oval-shaped key with two main arteries, Boulevard of the Presidents and Ringling Boulevard, converging on a circular park called Harding Place.

In its first year, Ringling Isles was accessible only by boat from the mainland. By 1925, Ringling had subsidized a causeway leading from Sarasota, and it became the primary artery to his developments. Although he was unsuccessful in convincing President Warren Harding to establish a Winter White House in New Edzell Castle on Bird Key (Harding died before the structure was completed), Ringling and investor Owen Burns were able to sell over $1 million worth of property shortly after the Isles opened and in advance of the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

On January 16, 2001, Harding Circle (now called St. Armand's Circle) was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Above: John J. Watson, General Plan of Ringling Isles, Sarasota, FL. November 1924. Photograph of plan mounted to canvas. William S. Wiedorn Collection, Box 5. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries. Wiedorn, known for his landscape work in New Orleans City Park, was in independent practice as an associate with John J. Watson from 1924-1927.

Elevations

Last week, I posted some UPhO images of raised southwest Louisiana coastal houses, and this early twentieth-century Key West, Florida, photograph reminded me of them. It is one of nearly 5,000 images that comprise the Dale McDonald Collection that is available online via the Florida Memory/State Archives portal. McDonald (1949-2007), was a firefigher and photographer born in Key West, who amassed an extensive collection of photographs and slides.

Last year, architect Alison Brooks received the Manser Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) for her Essex Salt House, an elevated structure built on the floodplain of the North Sea. Brooks based her design -- which the RIBA judges praised as "breathtaking" -- on modernist post-War beach houses in the United States. To read/see more, click here.

Photograph: unidentified photographer. The House on Stilts, End of the NW Channel, undated. Florida Memory/State Archives of Florida. Viewed 25.11.2008. [URL: http://www.floridamemory.com/PhotographicCollection/index.cfm]

Nominate an Endangered Place

John Eberson, architect. Walter Smalling, photographer. Tampa Theatre, Hillsborough County, Florida. n.d. Historic American Buildings Survey.

Since 1988, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has accepted nominations for "America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places," utilizing the designation to raise public awareness regarding threats to the nation's cultural heritage. Do you have a place that you would like to nominate? If so, contact the Southern regional office of the National Trust for a consultation about the appropriateness of your proposed nomination:

Southern Office

(Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, South Carolina, Virgin Islands)
456 King Street, 3rd Floor
Charleston, SC 29403
Tel: 843-722-8552
E-mail: soro@nthp.org

For more information about nomination criteria, click here. Nominations for the 2009 list are due by Friday, December 5, 2008.

The Tampa Theatre, shown above, was once endangered. Designed by Romanian-born theatre architect John Eberson prior to the Great Crash, the theatre opened to the public in 1926. Although it enjoyed decades of great popularity, by the 1960s the structure was under threat. In 1973, Tampa citizens rallied to save the landmark and subsidized a $2 million restoration. Today the theatre hosts over 600 events a year, including performances that showcase its historic Wurlitzer Organ. Last year for Halloween, legendary organist Rosa Rio performed her original score to accompany F. W. Murnau's German expressionist film Nosferatu (1922). She was carried to the stage in a coffin, and revealed to the audience her true age, 105. In a 2006 interview, Rosa conveyed, "I can't explain it. . . when I'm on stage [at the Tampa Theatre], I'm like a kid again." Sadly, this year she is not performing after over sixty years on the keyboards.

It is worth noting that Rosa played both the Strand and Saenger Theatres in New Orleans. She met a young Ginger Rogers while playing at the newly opened Saenger (1927), and when the Mississippi flooded its banks that same year, Rosa and others lifted up the theatre's organ to save it from the rising waters. She and her companions lived for two days in the Saenger and used its curtains for bedding. To read more, click here. The Southeastern Architectural Archive retains architect Emile Weil's drawings for the Saenger Theatre, 143 N. Rampart/1111 Canal Street, 1925-1927. The structure has been closed since Hurricane Katrina. Weil also designed the Pensacola, Florida Saenger Theatre, which opened in 1925 and has been undergoing renovations since this spring.



Rosa Rio Tampa Theatre Performance, 2005. Youtube. Viewed 31 October 2008.

FOR SALE: Swamp Castle with Alligator

Howard Solomon's 12,000-square-foot castle and its surrounding 70 acres of reclaimed swampland near Ona, Florida are for sale.The turreted structure has been featured on HGTV's "Most Extreme Homes in America" as well as on Roadside America. The Center for Land Use Interpretation has highlighted the self-built castle as an architectural and cultural landmark. Annually countless visitors tour the grounds and eat lunch on Solomon's 60-foot galleon in the complex's moat, which is populated by a resident female alligator.

The structure is 60 feet tall and largely constructed of recycled trash, including beer cans and oil drums. Sheathed in 34" offset aluminum newspaper printing plates, Solomon's Castle at times disappears in vibrant reflections of the intense sun. Over eighty stained glass windows populate the castle's many walls.

Although it is not as spectacular as the Forevertron, the Dr. Who-Influenced/Badger Army Ammunition Plant-Salvaged-Cold-War-Bits Concoction of Tom Every in Baraboo, Wisconsin, it is worth seeing.

What is the asking price? $2.5 million and listed on Castles for Sale.

Listen to This American Life's episode on "Simulated Worlds" and Read Umberto Eco's Travels in HyperReality: Essays (1986):

"We are dreaming the Middle Ages, some say. But in fact both Americans and Europeans are inheritors of the Western legacy, and all the problems of the Western World emerged in the Middle Ages: Modern languages, merchant cities, capitalistic economy (along with banks, checks and prime rates) are inventions of medieval society. In the Middle Ages we witness the rise of modern armies, of the modern concept of the nation state, as well as the idea of a supernatural federation; the struggle between the poor and the rich, the concept of heresy or ideological deviation, even our contemporary notion of love as a devastating unhappy happiness. I could add the conflict between church and state, trade unions, the technological transformation of labor."

Eco, p. 64 (Weaver translation)

To read more of the text: Check it out from Tulane: HTML PQ4865.C6T7 or googlebooks.

[Lomograph. Solomon's Castle, near Ona, Florida. Spring 2006 by K. Rylance.]

Abandonment and Blight

Nope, the man in the photograph is not preparing for a new tropical storm of the sort you may be imagining.

Today's New York Times features a video produced by Joshua Brustein, Ángel Franco and Dan Barry about Ft. Myers, Florida's attempts to deal with an increasing number of abandoned properties.

As Dan Barry reports in the related article:

"Come to Fort Myers, population 60,000, the seat of Lee County. Walk the Gulf Coast beaches. Cruise the Caloosahatchee River. Witness what happens when banks dole out easy mortgages and homeowners forget that the money isn’t free. Drive down McGregor Boulevard, or Cleveland Avenue, turn left or turn right, and see the empty houses, the overgrown lots, the signs saying AUCTION and FREE RENT."

In New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin's recent suspension of the city's Neighborhood Conservation District Committee (NCDC) demolition review process resulted in at least one tragic loss. To read more from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, click here.

[Photograph: Detail of Ángel Franco work for the NY Times 09.22.2008].

Finding Digitized Historic Photographs II

Finding Digitized Historic Images of Regional Architecture
As promised in my earlier post, I have some suggestions for finding digital reproductions of historic photographs recording the built environment of the Gulf Region. Many of the general sites mentioned in my earlier post are also applicable. In addition to the Historic American Buildings Survey images linked here, the Library of Congress also retains WPA and FSA records. Getty Images has some stellar reproductions of 1950s-60's era photographs of Moisant International Airport in New Orleans and of Florida resorts/motels.

Before naming specific websites, I should address my use of "regional" architecture: here I am using the Southeastern Architectural Archive's collecting areas of the Gulf Region states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. Our most comprehensive holdings relate to greater New Orleans, so on this blog I will primarily focus on the Crescent City, but here are some great sources for digital reproductions of photographs of the region's built environment:

Architecture and Interior Design for 20th-Century America
Part of the Library of Congress American Memory Project... photographs by Samuel Gottscho and William Schleisner, 1935-1955.

Auburn University Digital Library
See for example their collection of postcards.

Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Built in America: HABS/HAER
Historic American Buildings Survey and Historic American Engineering Record maintained by Library of Congress, with records from 1933-present.

GALILEO, The Digital Library of Georgia
See, for example, the Georgia Design Guidelines (urban planning) and Hubert Bond Owens and John Linley Image Collections at the Owens Library (historic architecture and landscapes).

Key West Public Library Digital Collections
The Monroe County Florida Public Library System maintains a growing digital collection: includes images of historic structures in Marathon, and the Dale McDonald Collection.

LOUISiana Digital Library

Mississippi Digital Library

New Orleans Public Library Photographs Arranged by Street Names

Publication of Archival Library and Museum Materials (PALMM)
For Florida, created by a consortium of the state university libraries.

University of Alabama Libraries Digital Collections
The Sydnia Keene Smyth Collection focuses on Antebellum Architecture of Tuscaloosa.