Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

Post by moderne »

I knew Curtiss was prolific but I had no realization how many buildings he designed and are now lost.  I wish someone could do a book on his works.
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Yes, and I have ten years worth of his work to post yet. ;-)

As DaveKCMO pointed out on page 3 of this thread, there is a book at the Kansas City Public Library on Curtiss:

Stalking Louis Curtiss, architect : a portrait of the man and his work
Sandy, Wilda.
Publisher:   Ward Parkway Press,
Pub date:   c1991.
Pages:   113 p. :
ISBN:   0962984701
Item info:    6 copies available at Kansas City Public Library - Central, Kansas City Public Library - Plaza Branch, Kansas City Public Library - Waldo Community Branch, and Kansas City Public Library - Bluford.

I would love to see an updated book though with color photos of his remaining buildings.   The Ideal Clothing Co. building in St. Louis, for example, still has an uncertain future.   The May Co. has been trying to pry it loose from its' owner since 2002. I don't know what their plans are for the site, but it can't be good.

Hypno-Raygun has a link posted to an article on his Flickr site:

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2002-06- ... ouble/full
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) building (1910) Renaissance Revival, Chicago-style.
1020-24 McGee
Kansas City, MO

This building (shown in a 1922 photo) is very similar looking to the Argyle building in style and appearance. It was demolished and replaced by the hideous Shopper's Parkade building, which is slated for demolition.

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Fine Arts Institute inside the downtown YWCA in 1910 just after the building was completed.

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The interior of the downtown YWCA.

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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Joplin Union Terminal Company, depot (1910)  Prairie-style, Louis Curtiss-style.
1st and Main
Joplin, MO

The building remains, but is vacant and awaiting restoration.

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14 images of Joplin Union Depot at:

http://www.denverrails.com/db/attrctpix ... tr_id=1370

Victor Breuter Residence  (1911)  Prairie-style; Louis Curtiss-style. House remains.
1800 E. 39th St. (east of Troost at Tracy near Manheim) (in need of rescue)
Kansas City, MO

Image

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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Wichita Union Teminal (1912)  Beaux-Arts Classical; Louis Curtiss-style
701 E. Douglas
Wichita KS

The building remains and is now a corporate headquarters.  This structure represents his largest train station design. It was completed before Kansas City's Union Station, designed by Jarvis Hunt, but see the similarity in the designs?

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Kansas City Union Station designed by Jarvis Hunt presents a similar, but larger, facade like that designed by Louis Curtiss at Wichita Union Terminal.

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Wichita Union Terminal

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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Please note the addition of the David Mulvane residence in Topeka on page three of this thread. This link will take you there:

http://forum.kcrag.com/http://www.kcrag ... 55#p292855

Thanks to the intrepid reporting of AnnieWarbucks
and the staff at the Topeka Public Library for tracking
this photo down and scanning it for the viewing pleasure
of forum participants.  AnnieWarbucks made it possible to
see this grand home.
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

Post by KCLofts »

moderne wrote: I knew Curtiss was prolific but I had no realization how many buildings he designed and are now lost.  I wish someone could do a book on his works.
In addition to the sheer numbers, his variety of architectural styles is also quite amazing.  He was very versatile.
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Casa Ricardo Hotel, office building, depot, and worker quarters (19xx) Demolished.
Kingsville, TX.
Louis Curtiss-style,  Prairie-style.

Design done for St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico Railway (through Fred Harvey).  Poured concrete structures. On this project, Curtiss designed the Casa Ricardo Hotel building, an office building for SBM railway, a depot building, and a worker quarters building.  All have been demolished.

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Railroad general office building

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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Corrigan-Sutherland residence (1913) Prairie-style, Art Nouveau, Eclectic. Louis Curtiss-style. House remains.
1200 W. 55th Street (at Ward Parkway)
Kansas City, MO

The home, built by Bernard Corrigan, who died before it was completed, was also owned by  P. J.
White (1912) and Joseph Heim (1917-21) before it was sold to Robert Sutherland.  Curtiss
designed a larger house than what was built.  Curtiss would later design a garage and guest house for Joseph Heim on the property.

The Corrigan-Sutherland mansion is located (NW corner of 55th and Ward Parkway) in the Sunset Hill neighborhood.  This home, completed in 1913, is considered by many to be local architect Louis Curtiss' masterpiece.  Others think Curtiss' best residential work is the Jesse Hoel residence in the Westheights Manor neighborhood of Kansas City, KS.  Still others think it was the Boley Building because it was such an innovative and striking structure for its' time.

According University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) architectural historian George Ehrlich, the home has a limestone exterior done in a modified Prairie-style with wide, projecting eaves, ribbon windows, interlocking shapes.  However, the  home does feature some floral ornamental not used in pure Prairie-style, so it's a combination of Prairie, modernism, and art nouveau/deco architectural influences.  Curtiss buildings were often very eclectic.

One of the great trophy houses in Kansas City.

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For more on the house, and an additional photo, visit the UMKC archive:

http://www.umkc.edu/whmckc/PUBLICATIONS ... ardP4a.htm
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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In 1913, Curtiss did a building survey for Missouri and Kansas Telephone Company, at 6th and Wyandotte, in Kansas City, MO. It involved preparation for remodeling, but it is unknown whether Curtiss did the project. The building has been demolished.

The same year, Curtiss designed three railroad stations--done in his unique style  It doesn't appear that any of these depots were ever constructed, and he might have just been submitting designs for bid.  One was similar to the Joplin, MO, Union Terminal, and another was a typical Curtiss train station design, but was larger than the others.  It's not even known in what locations these stations were supposed to be constructed.  One could presume they might have been for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe or St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico railways through his connections with Fred Harvey company.  Possibly in Kansas, Texas, or Oklahoma.
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Norman Tromanhauser residence (1915)  Prairie-style bungalow; Spanish Colonial; Louis Curtiss-style.  The home remains, but has had alternations.
3603 W. Roanoke Drive
Kansas City, MO

The Tromanhausers were friends of Curtiss. Their home was the first in a series of distinctive prairie-style bungalows that Curtiss would design in his later years.  No other major public or commercial building designs would be produced.  Curtiss concentrated on home designs until his death.

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More current photos are found at Hypnoraygun's site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hypnoraygu ... 212133124/
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Jesse Hoel residence (1916)  Prairie-style, Arts & Crafts; Louis Curtiss-style. 
Home remains and is in National Historic District.
2108 Washington Boulevard
Kansas City, KS


The Jesse Hoel residence, designed by Louis Curtiss and completed in 1916, is located at 2108 Washington Boulevard in the Westheight Manor Neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas.  (the photo in the link won't load).   Hoel was the developer of the Westheight Manor subdivision and also hired Curtiss to do the designs for the subdivision entry markers.  Hare & Hare were landscape architects.

http://westheight.tripod.com/2108washb.html

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[From the Kansas City, MO, Public Library Special Collections

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A quote from the Westheights Web site:

"The Jesse Hoel house is one of the finest works of architecture in Kansas City, Kansas. Its owner was obviously a man of progresssive ideas in planning and architecture. When Hoel, Fife and Hanford L. Kerr began the subdivision of the Kerr estate into Westheight Manor in 1915, they began what was for the time and place a very advanced development. The firm of Hare and Hare was engaged as planners and landscape architects, and Louis Curtiss was chosen as the architect for Hoel's new house facing the major intersection at the heart of the development.

Completed in 1916, the house was stylistically the most advanced of Curtiss' works. In recent years many people of the area have mistakenly believed it to be the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Its relation to the work of Wright and the Prairie School is more one of spirit and principle than of form, however. Very low and horizontal, the rough stonework seems to grow naturally out of the site in a series of low terraces, with the boundary wall adjacent to the street defining the first slight increase in elevation. Each major interior space is expressed as a distinct volume on the exterior, the whole interlocked into an asymmetrically balanced composition. The roofs are of varying pitch, all low, and with overhanging eaves to further emphasize the horizontality with their deep shadow lines. The glass areas are extensive, the use of casement windows and French doors serving to integrate the interior with the outdoors. The roof lines and the use of tile, the trellises, planting boxes, and the detailing of the woodwork all impart an oriental feeling, a feeling emphasized by the painting of all such exterior woodwork Chinese red."

More information about Jesse Hoel:

http://westheight.tripod.com/jessehoel.html
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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You are very much welcome FangKC. Anything to help out.
No trees were destroyed in the sending of this contaminant- free message.
However, a significant number of electrons have been inconvenienced.
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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William Rickel residence (1919)  Prairie-style. Spanish Colonial. Louis Curtiss-style. 
House remains and is in National Historic District.
2000 Washington Boulevard
Kansas City, KS

Image

More current photos can by found at Hypnoraygun's site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hypnoraygu ... 212273210/
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Residence (1920)  Louis Curtiss-style. Presumed demolished.
Actual location unknown
Westheight Manor
Kansas City, KS

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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Harry Miller Sr. residence (1920)  Prairie-style, Spanish Colonial, Louis Curtiss-style.
House remains and is part of National Historic District
2204 Washington Boulevard
Kansas City, KS

The Miller house had hand-painted ornamentation on the walls. Reportedly according to the book, Stalking Louis Curtiss, the Miller house has the most intact Curtiss interior of all his residential designs.

Image

More current photos can be found at Hypnoraygun's site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hypnoraygu ... 211944815/
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Harry M. Winkler residence  (1921)  Prairie-style, Spanish Colonial, Louis Curtiss-style.
House remains and is part of National Historic District.
1915 Washington Boulevard
Kansas City, KS

A current photo can be found at Hypnoraygun's site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hypnoraygu ... 211964781/
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Wookey House (1921)  Prairie-style. Louis Curtiss-style. Status unknown.
Location unknown
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

This is Curtiss' last design. It has an almost Japanese pagoda-style appearance.

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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Swope Park Superintendent's residence   (Year unknown)
Swope Park
E. 69th St. and Elmwood Avenue
Kansas City, MO

In 1970, Mrs. Sam Ray has this to say in the Kansas City Times:
The superintendent's residence, built of native stone and surrounded by spacious lawns, at
Sixty-ninth and Elmwood avenue, in Swope park, is pictured on this 1909 post card. It was
printed in color in Germany.

The sturdy building still stands but has suffered from vandalism and fire. The interior of the
building and roof have been partly destroyed. Demolition was being considered when eight
members of the Kansas City Landmarks commission, headed by Mel Solomon, stepped in. They
identified the house as being of architectural significance as an outstanding example of the
work of Louis Curtiss, famous early-day architect. Now a long-range restoration is being
considered with possible assistance from HUD.

Louis Curtiss was born in Belleville, Ontario, July 1, 1865. He studied at the University of
Toronto and at the L'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He was apparently drawn to Kansas City by
the building boom of the 1880s and by the successful careers of his countrymen, Thomas and
Bernard Corrigan.

From 1890 to 1892 he served as the assistant superintendent of buildings for Kansas City. He
was a partner of Fred C. Gunn from 1893 to 1897, and during that time designed the Missouri
building at the Chicago World's Fair. They also designed William R. Nelson's home, Oak Hall.

After the partnership ended, Curtiss was commissioned (in 1898) by the Corrigan brothers to
design the 6-story Baltimore hotel. This marked the beginning of 15 years of great
accomplishment and activity on residential and commercial projects in Kansas City. The Willis
Wood theater was one of his well-remembered creations.
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Re: Architects: Louis Curtiss Buildings

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Swope Park Superintendent's residence

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