SHEPPARD, Earle Leonard (1894-1957) was born in Montreal, Que. on 7 July 1894 and attended Westmount High School there. He served an apprenticeship with the prominent Montreal firm of Ross & Macdonald (1912-14), then moved to Philadelphia to study architecture at the Univ. of Pennsylvania. After graduating in 1917 he returned to Montreal to rejoin Ross & Macdonald, then moved to Detroit where he worked briefly with Albert Kahn, a leading architect of industrial buildings in the United States and Canada. In 1920 he settled in Toronto, serving as assistant to Thomas Lamb and supervising the construction of the Pantages Theatre (1919-20) and the Lowe's Uptown Theatre (1919-20). He then joined the Toronto Board of Education as a staff architect, and worked as assistant in the office of Chapman & Oxley before opening his own office in 1925.
Much of his work was for residential and industrial clients, and he was among the first to introduce a streamlined, modernist style to commercial architecture in Toronto, best seen in his progressive design for the Charles Hanson Laboratory Building (1934). He was the author of a truly visionary urban planning proposal for Vimy Circle and Cambrai Avenue, a sweeping Beaux-Arts plan to reconfigure the downtown core of Toronto, centred on University Avenue south of Queen Street (Toronto Daily Star, 11 March 1929, 1 & 2, 6, and 19, illus. & descrip.; C.R., xliii, 20 March 1929, 295-99, illus. & descrip.; W. Dendy, Lost Toronto, 1978, 144-7, illus. & descrip.). He also collaborated with Charles Dolphin on an extensive pre-Depression redevelopment plan to convert Temperance Street into a commercial shopping centre (C.R., xli, 14 Dec. 1927, 48). Projected to cost $11 million dollars, it was far too ambitious for the city to accept, and within months had been set aside.
In 1950 Sheppard received a Design Award from the Society of Plastics Industry for his invention of a new building material called 'Bloxolite', a light-weight plastic transparent block with a moulded ribbed face that resembled conventional glass block used in modern architecture from the 1930's onward. His last work was a striking modernist design for the Knight Building, Adelaide Street West near Yonge Street, a 13 storey contemporary office block completed in 1954 (R.A.I.C. Journal, xxxii, May 1955, 17, illus.). He served as President of the Ontario Association of Architects in 1951-52, and died in Toronto on 21 May 1957 (obit. Toronto Star, 23 May 1957, 2; Globe & Mail [Toronto], 23 May 1957, 10; R.A.I.C. Journal, xxxiv, July 1957, 278-9; inf. Ontario Assoc. of Architects). A biography and photographic portrait of Sheppard appeared in The Financial Post [Toronto], 27 Jan. 1951, 6.
(works in Toronto unless noted)
SHERBOURNE STREET, at Carlton Street, apartment block for W. Pugh, 1924-25 (Toronto b.p. 76969, 19 Dec. 1924)
TROCADERO BOWLING ALLEY, with five adjacent retail stores, Yonge Street near Balmoral Avenue, 1925 (Toronto b.p. 84986, 16 Oct. 1925)
BREAY-NASH MOTORS SHOWROOM, Bay Street at Charles Street West, 1926-27; demol. c. 1970 (C.R., xl, 27 Oct. 1926, 49; xli, 24 Aug. 1927, 826-8, illus. & descrip.; Toronto Daily Star, 30 Oct. 1926, 3, descrip.; 13 Nov. 1926, 5, illus.; Const., xx, July 1927, 217-20, illus. & descrip.; May 1927, 165, illus.)
LAKE SIMCOE ICE CO., Dupont Street at Davenport Road, office and garage, 1928 (Toronto b.p. A5848, 9 March 1928; C.R., xliii, 13 March 1929, 59, illus. in advert.)
BREDIN'S BREAD CO., Kendal Avenue at Davenport Road, baking factory, 1929 (Toronto Daily Star, 11 Jan. 1929, 17, illus. & descrip.; C.R., xliii, 16 Jan. 1929, 49)
DOMINION SERVICE STATION, Eastern Avenue near the Don Roadway, 1930; demol. (Const., xxiii, Dec. 1930, 417, illus.)
BUNT BUSINESS FORMS LTD., for F.N. Bunt Co. Ltd., Ray Avenue at Industry Street, Mount Dennis (now Weston), stationery office and printing plant, 1930 (C.R., xliv, 1 Jan. 1930, 46, t.c.; Year Book of the Toronto Chapter - Ontario Association of Architects, 1933, 70, illus. in advert; Const., xxv, Jan. 1932, 15-16, illus. & descrip.)
EDGEHILL ROAD, adjacent to Lambton Golf Course, residence for George C. Loveys, 1930 (C.R., xliv, 1 Oct. 1930, 71)
EDGEHILL ROAD, adjacent to Lambton Golf Course, residence for John H. Domelle, 1930 (C.R., xliv, 1 Oct. 1930, 71)
BABY POINT CRESCENT, overlooking the Humber River, residence for Harry T. Breay, 1930 (Const., xxiii, Dec. 1930, 403-04, 409-11, illus. & descrip.; C.H.G., viii, March 1931, 28-9, illus.)
MY VALET CO., Adelaide Street West near Yonge Street, retail shop front and garment cleaners, 1930-31 (Const., xxiv, Sept. 1931, 293-94, 299-300, illus. & descrip.; R.A.I.C. Journal, x, Nov. 1933, 180, illus.)
CHARLES HENSON LABORATORY LTD., King Street West at Niagara Street, 1934; altered c. 1992 (T. Morawetz, Art Deco Architecture in Toronto, 2009, 61, illus.)
NORTH YORK, residence for G. Collin Grant, Plymridge Crescent, 1938 (R.A.I.C. Journal, xvi, May 1939, 113, illus.)
CANADIAN NATIONAL EXHIBITION, four interior room displays for the 'Canadian Homes Beautiful' exhibit, 1940 (C.H.G., xvii, Oct. 1940, 20-3, illus.)
PORT CREDIT, ONT., residence for F.E. Wright, 1944 (C.H.G., xxi, June/July 1944, 16, illus.)
NORTH YORK, St. Andrews Estates & Golf Club, York Mills, a new clubhouse and adjacent subdivision, 1947 (Financial Post (Toronto), 28 June 1947, 17, descrip.)
COMPETITIONS
HAMILTON, ONT., North West Entrance Bridge, 1927-28. Sheppard was one of twelve architects who submitted designs for this major highway bridge and viaduct linking northwest Hamilton and Burlington to the north. Sheppard received the First Premium of $2,000 (R.A.I.C. Journal, v, April 1928, 131-36, illus. & descrip.; Toronto Star Weekly, 16 March 1929, 5, illus. & descrip.). His proposal proved to be too costly, and three years later John M. Lyle, who had received Third Prize in the original competition, was asked to prepare a more modest scheme.