Urban Legends

URBAN LEGENDS By: Sarah M. Booher

Garza Law Firm

GEORGE FRANKLIN BARBER: ARCHITECT TO AMERICA

Before Frank Lloyd Wright, subdivisions, and Amazon, there was George Franklin Barber, Knoxville suburbs, and house plan catalogs. George’s architectural legacy continues to brighten and beautify our Scruffy City.

BEGINNINGS

Born in 1854 in DeKalb, Illinois, to Lyman and Cornelia Barber, it is believed that George was orphaned, as he went to live with his sister Olive and her family on a farm in Marmaton, Kansas, at a young age. He bought the adjacent farm sometime in the 1870s, advertising “ornamental nursery stock.” His tax records, however, noted his official occupation as “carpenter.”1 At the same time, his interest in architecture became more than a hobby, intensely studying mail-order and technical books from powerhouses George Palliser and A.J. Bicknell & Company. He returned to DeKalb in the 1880s to design for his brother’s construction firm, Barber & Boardman. The Charles E. Brandt House in DeKalb is one of Charles’s first designs actually constructed and was featured in the March 1888 issue of Carpentry and Building.

KNOXVILLE SUCCESS

The late 1880s was a busy time for George both personally and professionally. In 1887 or 1888, he published his housing plans for the first time in The Cottage Souvenir. This catalog was economically-printed on punched card stock and tied together with yarn. The first edition contained fourteen house plans, although an immediate subsequent edition included four additional plans. Around the same time, George brought his wife, Laura, and their infant son, Charles, to our fair city in the hopes that the Knoxville weather would improve his failing health (although I could find no detailed information on what ailed him, all sources agree it was a medically-necessitated relocation).

George ever-so-briefly partnered with Martin Parmalee, then for a few years with his client J.C. White. It was during this time with White that he became involved in the Edgewood Land Improvement Company, designing over a dozen houses for the neighborhood now known as Parkridge, originally a streetcar suburb for Knoxville’s professional class. He himself lived there with his family at 1635 Washington Avenue (a beautiful home still standing today). Eventually he settled in with Thomas Klutz in 1895. Their firm was wildly popular. When they moved into the Barber-designed French & Roberts building on Gay Street a year later, they employed thirty draftsman and twenty secretaries.

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS

It was George’s popularity on the national and international stages that made his Knoxville firms and business ventures so successful. Just two years after moving to Knoxville, he published The Cottage Souvenir No. 2. This catalog included fiftynine house plans, as well as the designs for two barns, a chapel, a church, two storefronts, and several pavilions. He targeted the rising middle class along with wealthy industrialists. The houses in his catalog cost between $500 and $8,000 to build, and each design featured a photograph of the completed structure. In discussing his architectural philosophy, Barber believed that no structure should adhere more closely to the essential principles of nature than one’s own house. He deemed proportion the most important element in architecture, likening it to harmony in music. Likewise, he considered ornamentation to be his second most important element, as it gives proportion expression.2

Perhaps what was most notable about his architectural approach was the fact that he encouraged his customers to modify his plans. He believed small tweaks should be negotiated with the builder directly; more major or large-scale adjustments could be handled with his architectural firm for a modest price. He told potential clients, “Write to us concerning any changes wanted in plans, and keep writing till you get what you want. Don’t be afraid of writing too often. We are not easily offended.”3

Whether there was a national scarcity of local architects or it was his accessible approach to housing, America adored George Franklin Barber designs. Business exploded. Then he started getting customers in South Africa, Japan, and the Philippines, among other countries. His original Queen Anne designs eventually led to Romanesque plans, then on to Colonial, Bungalow, and even Craftsman as tastes changed. He began to phase out his catalog business in the early 1900s and completely discontinued it in 1908, choosing to focus his efforts entirely on Knoxville and its surrounding areas.

George died unexpectedly in 1915 (cause of death unknown or undocumented) and is buried with his family at Greenwood Cemetery on Tazewell Pike.

LONG RANGE SUCCESS

It is estimated that Barber sold approximately 20,000 plans of over 800 designs to customers in every U.S. state and other countries. Since he encouraged personalization of homes, it is difficult to assess the truest extent of his impact on our domestic architecture, yet his direct contributions are still recognized. More than four dozen of homes built from his designs are individually listed on the National Register for Historic Places. Countless other homes and professional buildings still stand today and have been noted as valuable characteristics of historic districts. His son Charles became an architect as well, and started his firm, BarberMcMurry, in 1915. BarberMcMurry endures today, located on Market Street, and its award-winning architecture is appreciated across Tennessee.

1 He was granted a patent in 1884 for a nail-holding attachment for hammers, indicating success would have followed him regardless of what path he took in life. 2 George F. Barber, Victorian Cottage Architecture: An American Catalog of

Designs (Dover Publications, 2004), 3-7. 3 From his Cottage Souvenir No. 2 catalog.