Maine architect, 1855 — 1940

Interview by Sally Johnstone
Coastal Journal Contributor

We're speaking today with John Calvin Stevens, renowned Maine architect, who lived from 1855 to 1940 and was one of the originators of the Shingle Style of architecture. He will be the subject of an illustrated lecture, entitled “John Calvin Stevens in Bath,” by Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., Director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission at the Winter Street Center, 880 Washington St., Bath, on Thursday, November 12, at 7 p.m.

Mr. Stevens, thank you for joining us today. The first question I have for you, given your preeminence among Maine architects — are you a Maine native?

I was born in Boston but moved to Portland when I was just two years old, a Mainer by immersion, if not birth. My father, Leander, was a cabinet maker and also designed and built fancy carriages in Boston, but when we came to Maine he was first a grocer and then a hotel manager.

Why architecture?

I loved drawing as a boy, and was told that I had a true gift with pen and ink. I dearly desired to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study architecture after finishing high school, but financial reality prevailed so at 18 years of age, I apprenticed to a well-known Portland architect, Francis Fassett, who was originally from Bath. I spent a few years sweeping floors, grinding ink, tending fires, and running errands as the office boy. but those were pleasant and happy days, for the work, while long and continued, was not arduous. Mr. Fassett had an excellent library and his boys had ample opportunity to make use of it, so the office boy had only himself to blame if he did not profit by what was at his hand. I worked my way up from office boy to head draftsman in just a few years.

That was Francis Fassett, with whom we spoke last year?

Yes, Mr. Fassett was my first teacher, and in fact he valued my work so much that he made me a partner after just seven years of learning from him. I opened a branch office in Boston in 1880, but had to return to Portland to help with the incredible demand for our firm's services. While in Boston I did complete a design commission for the Hotel Pemberton. I also learned about the new Queen Anne style, with its elaborately detailed and colored asymmetrical porches and towers and turrets, from William Ralph Emerson, a cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose office was nearby. Mr. Emerson also inspired me with his early Shingle Style designs. In 1884, I opened my own practice, with Mr. Fassett's encouragement, and that firm still exists.

Anything else come out of your time in Boston?

In 1888, Albert W. Cobb, Mr. Emerson's chief draftsman in Boston, became my partner. Together we wrote Examples of American Domestic Architecture in 1889, which received national and international recognition.

Did you design any buildings in Bath?

Yes, after a fire in 1893, Galen Moses hired me to design a new building at the corner of Front and Summer Streets for the YMCA and next door the new Columbia Theatre. Then in January, 1894, another fire destroyed many of the buildings near the intersection of Front and Centre Streets. The day after the fire, Mr. Moses contacted me to draw up plans for the Sagadahock Block on that corner and for the Percy Block, where Reny's is now. I also designed a Shingle Style house on Washington Street.

Can you tell us a little about the Shingle Style?

Many of my commissions were for vacation homes. As you know, Maine has been the vacation retreat of choice for men of fame and fortune for more than a century, and many desired a home created in harmony with its location, and thus the Shingle Style evolved.

The houses are covered with native wood shingles, as the name implies, though the first floors of many of the cottages were actually of brick or stone. Towers and wide porches are frequently a part of the design, and gambrel roofs make the homes seem to hug the landscape. I used open floor plans with large rooms, especially on the first floors, to bring the feel of the open spaces of the surrounding country to the interior of the home.

I designed such houses all along the coast of Maine and in her suburbs and cities. I even designed a Shingle Style fraternity house at Bowdoin College, Psi Upsilon, now called Quinby House. The home I designed for myself, and in which I resided for many years, was a Shingle Style. The first story is of brick, protruding here and there at random, giving dots of shadow playful in their effect. Creeping vines and stately hollyhocks help make the summer aspect of the house enticing, even to the disinterested spectator.

I completed commissions for shingle style homes as far away as Summit, New Jersey and Montreal, Canada. You have likely seen or been in a building I designed - in my career, I completed more than 1,000 commissions, including approximately 300 on the Portland peninsula and another 100 in Portland's Deering neighborhood.

Was most of your work in the Shingle Style?

No, by the late 1890s, I was designing more buildings in the Colonial or Georgian Revival style; there was a growing interest in colonial history, architecture and decorative arts, and people wanted a return to the more formal and symmetrical Federal and Georgian styles. I designed Elmhurst (now the Hyde School) in Bath for BIW president John S. Hyde in a Georgian style-it has been called the grandest estate built in Maine in the early 20th century. I twice remodeled the interior of Winter Street Church with more Colonial Revival details.

Did you do a lot of redesign work?

Yes, as architectural fashions changed, people wanted to stay up-to-date, so they hired me to design additions or renovations in a later style. I did such work for several Bath houses, including the Galen Moses House, the Sewall house at 963 Washington Street, and 37 Oak Street. I also designed some “reproductions”, such as Wiscasset's First Congregational Church in 1908 to replace the original meetinghouse that had been destroyed by fire.

Have you received any unusual payments for a commission?

Winslow Homer paid me in a most generous and much appreciated manner. I designed a house for Charlie, Winslow's brother, at Prout's Neck and a studio for Winslow, and then Winslow asked me to do a house for him. When time came for me to present a bill, I requested 'any production of Winslow Homer' as payment, rather than hard currency. and Homer, calling me brother artist, surprised me with a magnificent oil painting titled "The Artist's Studio in an Afternoon Fog."

What did you do in your retirement?

I didn't — retire that is. I had a wonderfully long and fruitful career of nearly 70 years, all of which I enjoyed tremendously. From the time I opened my own office, I have been convinced that I had chosen the right vocation, for I was busy and happy in my work, as a man should be. Progress meant plenty of study, and plenty of hard work, but I feel that it was well worthwhile, for it brought me the approval of men who represented to me the best in the architectural profession.... I could only wish the same experience for those who followed me and since my son, grandson, and great-grandson continued in the firm, it seems that my legacy lives on. SMRT, formerly Stevens Morton Rose & Thompson, was founded by me in 1884 and my great grandson is still involved in its day-to-day operations at the age of 71.

Haven't you recently received some recognition?

Yes. This year my firm has been celebrating its 125th anniversary with several events and tours of some of my buildings. Then the City of Portland proclaimed October 8th John Calvin Stevens Day — it was my 154th birthday, and Senator Snowe presented a Congressional Record Recognition of my career.

John Calvin Stevens Domestic Architecture 1890 - 1930, written by John Calvin Stevens II and Earle G. Shettleworth, Jr., served as the main source for information about Stevens. Where possible, direct quotes taken from reference materials written by Stevens himself have been used.