Architect Biography - Curtiss

Westheight Manor Historic Survey Appendix five Architects 

Louis Singleton Curtiss was born in Belleville, Ontario, on 1 July 1865, the second son of Don Carlos and Frances Elvia Curtiss. He was the fourth of six children, including twin girls. His father was a dry goods merchant in Belleville; was mother, of French descent, had moved to Canada from Norwalk, Ohio after being left widowed with an infant daughter. In later years Curtiss kept in touch with his family, including his elder half-sister, but was non-communicative about his personal life with his friends and associates in Kansas City. So much so that when he died, one of the city's most notable architects, his obituaries uniformly gave his middle initial as "A." rather than "S.", one stated that he was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, and another stated that he had no known relatives.

Perhaps one cause of his reticence was that he had been on his own for many years. His father died in 1883, and Frances Curtiss died just fifteen months later in June 1884. The remaining family members were scattered; Louis reportedly enrolled at the University of Toronto to study engineering. He also supposedly studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France (the first of several trips to Europe), but no record of his presence at the Ecole has been found.

By 1887 the twenty-two-year-old Curtiss had arrived in Kansas City, one of many young architects who relocated in order to take advantage of the building boom then under way. The following year he was employed as a draftsman in the office of Adraince Van Brunt, a local architect of some prominence who would later play a major role on the city's first Park Board.

Curtiss left Van Brunt in 1890 to form a partnership with Frederick C. Gunn as the firm of Gunn & Curtiss. At the same time, he began a two- year appointment as assistant to the Superintendent of Buildings for Kansas City, Missouri. While serving in this capacity he designed the pioneering caisson footings for the old Kansas City, Missouri City Hall at 4th & Main Streets (1891-92, demolished 1938), apparent evidence of his background in engineering.

Several of the architects who worked with Curtiss over the years are of some note. James C. Sunderland worked for Gunn & Curtiss for eight years before starting his own firm in 1899. Nineteen-year-old Frederick McIlvain joined Gunn & Curtiss as a draftsman in 1892, and remained with Curtiss as his principal assistant for seventeen years. Curtiss' influence on McIlvain was particularly strong, to the point where several of McIlvain's later, independent commissions have occasionally been misattributed to his former employer.

The practice of Gunn & Curtiss was successful from the beginning. Perhaps surprising for a relatively young firm, they received the commission to design the Missouri State Building for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, Illinois. Other large public projects followed, including the Tarrant County Courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas (1893-95), and the very similar Cabell County Courthouse in Huntington, West Virginia (1895). Both courthouses were in the French Renaissance style, featuring a central block with end pavilions and a domed central tower, on a scale approaching that of some state capitol buildings.

Additional projects from the early 1890s included the Progress Club and Virginia Hotel, both on Washington Street in the Quality Hill area of Kansas City, Missouri. Of particular interest as an example of the extremely imaginative design of which Curtiss was capable was the Immanuel Church, erected in 1893 on the grounds of the Western Branch of the National Home for Disabled Soldiers in Leavenworth, Kansas. Here Romanesque and Gothic elements were freely mixed in a building dominated by its great gable roof, almost a forerunner of the A-frame buildings of the 1960s.

In 1895-96 Curtiss spent six to seven months again studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he reportedly had his design for a Palais de Justice accepted by the offical jury for salon exhibition. He returned to Kansas City in April 1896, where an unbuilt design for a Wayside Inn, "to be situated on one of the roads leading from the town", was soon published in the Kansas City Star. This project signaled the beginning of the partonage of William Rockhill Nelson, publisher of the Star, a relationship that would apparently last until Nelson's death in 1915. Over the years Curtiss designed a variety of alterations and additions to Nelson's home, Oak Hall, as well as houses in the nearby Rockhill development and additions to the Star building.

As a result of the Panic of 1893 and the ensuing depression, opportunities for architects were limited in the latter part of the decade. Nevertheless, in 1898 Curtiss was once again in Europe for three months, doing research on the Baltimore Hotel project for the Thomas Corrigan estate. The initial phase of the hotel was built in 1898-99 at the southeast corner of 11th & Baltimore in Kansas City, Missouri. From that point on Curtiss was repeatedly called back for alterations and additions, in 1901, 1904, 1907-08, and 1914, until the hotel covered half of a city block. The commission also provided Curtiss with two future patrons in the persons of Bernard Corrigan, trustee for the estate, and Allen J. Dean, secretary and general manager of the Baltimore Hotel Company.

There is some question as to whether or not the initial Baltimore Hotel commission was a Gunn & Curtiss project or belonged to Curtiss alone. In any event the firm was dissolved in 1899 and Curtiss began his independent practice. At this time Curtiss made a will in which his books, household goods and furniture were left to Frederick McIlvain, who continued in the new office as Curtiss' associate. Despite the increasing volume of business, the office apparently never consisted of much more than Curtiss, the assistant McIlvain, one or two draftsmen, and an office boy.

One of the first commissions to be completed after the split with Gunn was the Standard - now the Folly - Theatre, built in 1900 at 300 West 12th Street, Kansas City, Missouri, which may have begun as a Gunn & Curtiss design. This was followed by a series of notable works, including the Willis Wood Theatre of 1901-02, a marvelous Beaux Arts wedding cake of a building that stood across from the Baltimore Hotel and sadly burned in 1917. Although most have been demolished or altered past all recognition, Curtiss also did a large number of commercial and office buildings in or near the downtown in this period. Perhaps the most notable was the first building for the Jones Store Co., (1902). A Chicago Style commercial building, its steel frame was clad in white terra cotta, with at least a superficial resemblance to Louis Sullivan's Carson-Pirie-Scott store.

Most of Curtiss' designs up to this point had been rather witty, eclectic variations on the historical styles, with even the Jones Store following an accepted, if rather new, precedent. He was well educated, well travelled, and well read, with an amazingly wide range of interest. He was also a rather flamboyant individualist, with white suits, a flowing tie, one of the fastest cars in town, personally monogrammed Turkish cigarettes which he smoked incessantly, and a habit of paying his bills in gold coin. It is therefore not too surprising that like other architects of his generation, he began to question the appropriateness of slavish adherence to historical precedent, and instead began to consider the development of a new architecture, appropriate to its time and place.

Perhaps the first indication of the direction that he would eventually take came with the R. E. Bruner house of 1903-04. The rough limestone and red tile roof were common enough in Kansas City, but the entry door of wood and leaded glass, set within a Syrian arch covered with mosaic tiles, was one of the purest examples of Art Noveau design to be found anywhere within the United States.

The Bruner house was not immediately followed by similar examples. The Rule house of 1904 was comfortably Colonial Revival, while the Benjamin Schnierle house at Sixth Street and Oakland in Kansas City, Kansas was just a bit out of the ordinary, with wide-eaved hip roofs derived from the Prairie School and unusual dormers which extended the lower wall plane. Curtiss' commercial buildings of this period, such as the Argyle Building at 306 East 12th Street, also continued to follow historic precedent, although like his houses they show a certain austerity in their flat walls with crisply punched openings, quite different from the Beaux Arts exuberance that might be expected from someone with Curtiss' background.

In 1905, Curtiss was reportedly exposed to smallpox while viewing a fire in the West Bottoms. He was required to remain isolated for several months, which may have given him an opportunity to carefully consider the direction and content of his work. In any event, it was from this point that he became increasingly involved in the development of a highly personal architectural style. The elements of that style were not entirely his own, but were blended in such a way as to produce something surprisingly coherent. His commercial projects from this point would combine the explicit approach to structure of the Chicago School with a treatment of surface and ornament derived in large part from the Vienna Secession, with its geometric abstraction of Baroque and Neo-Classical sources.

His residential work was initially strongly influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement, but other elements eventually came into play such as tile roofs, flat stucco wall surfaces, and blocky forms borrowed from the Spanish Colonial Revival, together with a horizontal line and the use of multiple casements common to both the Prairie Style and work of the brothers Greene in California. The link between the two aspects of his work could be found in his largest residential commissions, the Corrigan house and the Casa Ricardo tourist hotel. Here the elements of his commercial work and smaller residences are blended, with Prairie Style lines, Secessionist ornament, and touches of the Arts and Crafts. Taken individually these buildings can seem rather idiosyncratic, but when viewed together they form a very consistent and highly attractive body of work.

It was shortly after his illness that a whole new field of work opened up for Curtiss. He began to design railroad stations and related hotel facilities for the Santa Fe Railroad and the Fred Harvey restaurant chain, to the point of becoming virtually the "house architect" for the Santa Fe system. One of the first such projects was the El Bisonte Hotel in Hutchinson, Kansas, completed in 1907. Here the Arts and Crafts interiors would set the pattern for much of his future work. Similar projects soon followed, with depots and hotels in Emporia, Syracuse and Wellington, Kansas; the El Ortiz Hotel of 1909 in Lamy, New Mexico; and additions to the El Tovar Hotel at Grand Canyon, Arizona.

A number of these works drew on the Southwestern, Indian, and Spanish Colonial motifs long associated with the Santa Fe, and are the first such instances of these elements in Curtiss' developing style. With his reputation established as a railroad architect by his work for the Santa Fe, other railroad projects followed, particularly in Texas and the Southwest. Among his patrons, in addition to the Santa Fe, were the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway (the Frisco Line), the Rock Island, and the short-lived St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway.

Curtiss in his personal life did not enjoy the same success as in his growing architectural practice. According to his biographer, Fred Comee, it was in late 1907 or early 1908 that the great romance in Curtiss' life ended disastrously. Although a long time friend of the family, his proposal of marriage was rejected by the girl's father because of a difference in ages, and the girl married another man. There has been some speculation that this event helped to push Curtiss further down the path he had chosen in developing a new architecture.

It was also during this period of change and innovation that Curtiss lost his long-time assistant, Frederick McIlvain. In 1908, McIlvain formed a partnership with Frank Jackson, a former draftsman with Frederick Hill and Van Brunt & Howe. In 1909 they designed the Elms Hotel in Excelsior Springs, a building with a marked similarity to Curtiss' El Bisonte Hotel (and a replacement for the first Elms Hotel, a possible Curtiss design destroyed by fire). They also designed a commercial building at 3240 Main Street Kansas City, Missouri in 1914 with such strong similarities to Curtiss' later work that for some time it was attributed to him. By 1910 Curtiss had another assistant, Clarence K. Birdsall, but Birdsall only remained with the office for a relatively short time.

As Curtiss' new style developed through his railroad commissions, so to with his various commercial projects. The common design program tended to be an enframement at the sides or corners and top of terra cotta, with a wall area of glass and metal hung from the frame as a screen. The pattern was set with a small commercial building for Dean Brothers Realty Co. at 1114-1116 McGee Street, Kansas City, Missouri, in 1904, a similar building for the same client at 1105 McGee in 1906, and soon fully developed with the famous Boley Clothing Company Building of 1908-09. In the last instance the screen wall was literally hung from the edges of the floor slabs, which were cantilevered for several feet beyond the structural columns, making the Boley Building the first true glass and metal curtain-wall building in the world. Other buildings of like design were Curtiss' own three-story Studio Building at 1118-1120 McGee, completed soon after the Boley, and the Ideal Clothing Company Building, erected in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1910. The Studio Building was built as an investment on the advice of Bernard Corrigan, given the substantial income that Curtiss was now receiving.

Curtiss continued to receive railroad projects, including two Union Railroad Terminals, one for Wichita, Kansas, and one in Joplin, Missouri, both begun in 1910. The Joplin Union Terminal was similar to several of his more adventurous depots for the Santa Fe, albeit on a larger scale, and had elements of the Boley Building as well, with its large glass areas framed with terra cotta and set off by over-scaled Secessionist ornament. The Wichita station was another project for the Santa Fe. Its main entry facade was at one end, and reflected the Beaux Arts Classicism of Curtiss' earlier career. What the most commonly published photo does not reveal, however, is that the long side facades were entirely in Curtiss' new style, while the interiors were almost pure Vienna Secession in form and ornament. Renderings of three other depot projects from this period are known, all unidentified and only one dated (30 August 1913) and all continue in the pattern set by the Joplin and Wichita depots.

In 1911-12 Curtiss undertook a number of projects for the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroad in the new town of Kingsville, Texas. One of these was for a tourist hotel called the Casa Ricardo (Casa Gertrudis on the original rendering), to be operated under Fred Harvey management. An L-shaped structure with broad eaves and continuous balconies along the interior of the L, the design was one of Curtiss' finest, and set the pattern for the Bernard Corrigan residence on Ward Parkway in Kansas City, Missouri, built the following year. Corrigan was, like Curtiss, originally from Canada, and had played a significant role in Curtiss' career. Unfortunately, he died before the house was completed and it passed into the hands of the Sutherland family.

As these projects were underway, Curtiss acquired a new assistant. Fred S. Wilson joined Curtiss as a draftsman in 1912, and would remain in the office until the beginning of World War I. Although he established his own practice after the war, he would continue to supervise jobs for his former employer through the last of Curtiss' active projects.

The volume of Curtiss' practice dropped markedly after 1912. In part this was likely related to a general shift in public taste, as the various academic revival styles won out over attempts to develop a specifically American architecture. Like fall-offs happened in the practices of other "Progressive" architects of the period such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles & Henry Greene. Those who could not, or would not, adapt themselves to the demand for a polite historicism soon found themselves without clients or commissions.

From this point on Curtiss' work was largely confined to small and medium size houses. Fortunately, in the area, there was still some demand for his talents. The house that set the pattern for those that followed was built in 1914-15 for his friends the Norman Tromanhausers, at 3603 West Roanoke Drive. Here the various features of the later houses all found expression: plain stucco wall surfaces accented by carefully placed flat tiles, large glass area partially framed or screened by geometircal wooden trellis work, panels of stained glass illuminated by concealed lighting, repeated use of casement windows and French doors, and Arts and Crafts interiors with beamed ceilings, brick fireplaces, and built-in seats and shelving. There was also a tendency toward volumetric expression, with each major interior space or group of related spaces expressed as a distinct volume or form on the outside.

In 1915 and early 1916, the subdivision of Westheight Manor was developed in Kansas City, Kansas by Jesse A. Hoel from designs prepared by Hare and Hare. Hoel was obviously an enthusiast where Curtiss was concerned, as the first house to be built in the new subdivision, Hoel's own, was one of Curtiss' finest. Here the stucco was replaced by rough faced stonework, but in other ways the pattern set by the Tromanhauser design was followed. Curtiss may also have been responsible for the Westheight entry markers at 18th Street and Washington Boulevard, as they have a strong resemblance to the forms and details of the Hoel residence.

Additional designs for Westheight followed, with the William C. Rickel house of 1919 and the Harry G. Miller, Sr. house in 1920-21. Yet another house for Westheight, built before 1921, is known only from a blurred photograph in a Hoel Realty Co. advertisement. The Harry M. Winkler residence of 1921, at 1915 Washington Avenue, may also be a Curtiss design, although it is conceivable that it was the work of Fred S. Wilson. A single Curtiss project in Kansas City, Missouri, the James G. Rowell residence of 1920-21, is contemporary with the Westheight work.

One other house from this period deserves mention. The Wookey residence in Toronto, Ontario, is known from a photograph which is labeled "last design" on the back in pencil. Fred Comee assumed that this meant the house was built about 1915, but he was unaware of the Westheight projects or the Rowell house. It is a striking design, with elements of the Tromanhauser and Hoel residences set off by an apparent return to formal symmetry, and great planting urns of cast stone similar to those found on some Prairie School designs.

In his last years Curtiss seemed to retreat into isolation. In 1917 he developed the top floor of the Studio Building into an apartment for himself, with features reminiscent of his residential interiors of the time but many unusual personal touches as well. As commissions declined in size and number he spent increasing hours on structural studies and the development of architectural theory. By the time the Miller house was under construction, he left supervision entirely in the hands of Fred Wilson and visited the site only once.

Louis S. Curtiss, unquestionably Kansas City's most important architect, died on 24 June 1924, at about 9:00 in the evening while at his drawing board in his apartment. He was not quite 59 years old. His rather inaccurate obituaries noted that he had complained of bronchial problems to his friends. His death followed a coughing spell, and was officially ascribed to hemorrhage of the lungs. Some have stated that it was in actuality a ruptured aortic aneurysm, the result of syphilis contracted many years before. He was buried, at his own request, in an unmarked grave in Mount Washington Cemetery.