There are a number of famous architects that shared in the building of the United States’ rich architectural history. People are continually fascinated by the diversity of US architecture for its great variety, history, and richness. There are plenty of architects that have contributed to the multiplicity of styles and materials, and each different style and material seems to tell a different tale of where the US has been and where it’s going.

The buildings of the US tell the tale of past eras. With every brick and stone of the US, tales of its trials and ordeals, ups and downs are revealed. When you take a trip down famous city streets, like St. Louis, you can also experience this history first-hand.

It’s essential to never lose sight of the people that helped to mold history, through their own personal stories of prosperity and growth. George Washington Smith is one such example. He was a US architect with an fascinating life story that merges with the history of an amazing style of architecture.

George Washington Smith was born in 1876 in Pennsylvania, on George Washington’s birthday. He was the son of a famous Pennsylvania engineer. He studied painting at the Pennsylvania academy of Fine Arts and later attended Harvard University where he studied architecture. However, he was unable to graduate due to his family’s financial difficulties.

Due to his newfound financial success, Smith quit his work in 1911 and fully devoted himself to painting and art. He moved to Europe with his new wife Mary Catherine Greenough and studied his favorite artists Paul Cezanne and Paul Gauguin. Smith traveled all throughout Europe, painting landscapes and studying in Rome at the Julian Academy and also in Paris. After three fruitful years in Europe, Smith returned to the US at the beginning of World War I.

Smith moved to California once his paintings received a lot of acknowledgment in New York. It was in California that he designed and built his own home in Montecito. The home was modeled after the Spanish farmhouses he so admired in Andalusia. The Montecito was a wonderful successful and was referred to as Casa Dracaena. Ads containing the images of the property were used to sell particular types of tile and cement for other building projects. His fellow neighbors desired similar buildings for their own homes.

Smith is credited as the father of the Spanish Colonial Revival Style. His original Montecito home, as well as “Casa Del Greco”, his second self-designed residences next door, built in 1920, are still extant today as family residences.

The Spanish style is always in high demand in the United States, as seen across the nation in other forms of Spanish style, like the Spanish mission style. A great example is the Spanish Mission Deco style that was a style-fusion that happened in the 1920’s. T.P. Barnett’s Spanish Deco building in St. Louis on the famous Washington Ave. is a great example of that.

Art Deco and Spanish Mission Style Architecture is part of some of the classic buildings of Missouri. To download the original plans of the Thomas P Barnett Historic Building or go here to find out more about St Louis Commercial Real Estate For Sale

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