STEVENS, Harold Lyle & Co., (1876-1960), active in Vancouver, Calgary and Halifax where the firm was listed variously as “Architects” or “Architectural Engineers”, and they offered their services for both the design and the construction of new structures, often collaborating with other architects who were commissioned to prepare the original drawings. Their early works in Canada were often multi-storey towers rising 8 to 10 stories in height, using an innovative reinforced concrete frame and faced with brick or dressed stone, incorporating architectural terra cotta elements expressed in a Beaux-Arts style, or in a Classical Revival style. Their later works, designed after WWI, frequently made use of the Georgian Revival style.
Headquartered in Chicago, with branch offices in New York City and San Francisco, the firm of H.L. Stevens & Co. consisted of the founder Harold Lyle Stevens (1876-1960), and his brothers James C. Stevens and Leonard J. Stevens (Polk's Chicago Directory, 1923, p. 2555). Harold L. Stevens was born in Tomah, Wisconsin on 23 November 1876, but no information has been found on his education or training. He established the original office of H.L. Stevens & Co. before 1910, and their business expanded to include offices in New York City (from 1922 to 1934), and in California. They specialized in designing luxury apartment blocks that were built in Chicago, Ill., Pittsburgh, Penn., Buffalo, N.Y., as well as apartment hotels in Des Moines, Iowa and Minneapolis, Minn. The firm also designed hotels in Northampton, Mass., at Salem, Mass., Lincoln, Neb., Bakersfield, Calif., and the famous Hotel Bothwell at Sedalia, Missouri., now listed on the United States National Register of Historic Places.
In Halifax, N.S., the firm of H.L. Stevens & Co. were mistakenly credited as the “architects” of the Lord Nelson Hotel in Halifax (C.R., xlii, 26 Dec. 1928, p. 72, illus. in advert.). Their actual role in the project may only have been to serve as contractors and builders, and to assist the architects Warren & Wetmore of New York City with completion of the project (inf. on H.L. Stevens & Co. in James Ward, Architects in Practice New York 1900-1940, 1989, 74; biog. D. Luxton, Building The West: The Early Architects of British Columbia, 2003, 484, 579)
CALGARY, ALTA., The Empire Building, 8th Avenue, commercial block of six stores, c. 1911 (dwgs. at Canadian Architectural Archives, Univ. of Calgary, Acc. Ste LC/00E55)
VANCOUVER, B.C., Duncan Building, for Howard J. Duncan, West Pender Street between Cambie Street and Abbott Street, 1911-12 (Province [Vancouver], 25 July 1911, 7, illus.; H. Kalman, Exploring Vancouver, 1993, 60, illus.; dwgs. at Vancouver City Archives)
NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C., commercial block for Howard J. Duncan, Second Street at Lonsdale Avenue, 1912 (Vancouver Daily World, 25 Jan. 1912, 15)
VANCOUVER, B.C., Molson’s Bank, East Hastings Street at Market Lane, 1912 (Province [Vancouver], 6 April 1912, 31, illus. & descrip.; C.R., xxvi, 1 May 1912, 59, illus. & descrip.; dwgs. at Vancouver City Archives)
VANCOUVER, B.C., Shaughnessy Lodge Apartments, West 10th Avenue at Birch Street, 1912 (Province [Vancouver], 22 June 1912, 22, descrip.; dwgs. at Vancouver City Archives)
VANCOUVER, B.C., McFarland Block, for J.W. MacFarland, also called The Lolomie Hotel, Seymour Street near Robson Street, 1912-13 (Province [Vancouver], 26 Oct. 1912, 30, descrip.; 12 July 1913, 26, illus. & descrip.)
EDMONTON, ALTA., The Sherman Theatre, Third Street, 1912-13 (Edmonton Daily Bulletin, 11 Dec. 1912, 10)
(with Barott, Blackadder & Webster) VANCOUVER, B.C., Credit Foncier Building, West Hastings Street at Hornby Street, 1913-14 (Province [Vancouver], 12 July 1913, 26, illus. & descrip.; H. Kalman, Exploring Vancouver, 1993, 87, dwgs. Vancouver City Archives)
CHICAGO, ILL., USA, The Churchill Apartments, North State Street at East Goethe Street, 1922 (Handbook of the Illinois Society of Architects, 1922, 152, illus.; Baird & Warner, A Portfolio of Fine Apartment Homes [Chicago], 1928, 80, illus.)
SHERBROOKE, QUE., hotel for the Leyland Hotels System of Rochester, N.Y., Wellington Street North, 1924-25 (C.R., xxxviii, 3 Dec. 1924, 52)
(with Warren & Wetmore) HALIFAX, N.S., Lord Nelson Hotel, South Park Street at Spring Garden Road, 1927-28 (Acadian Recorder [Halifax], 6 May 1926, 2; Evening Mail [Halifax], 7 July 1927, 1, illus.; C.R., xli, 2 Nov. 1927, 52; Evening Mail [Halifax], 17 April 1928, 3; Canadian Hotel Review, vi, Nov. 1928, 29-34, illus. & descrip.; dwgs. at PANS)