MAKEPEACE, Stanley (1881-1959) was active in Toronto, Ont. where his name appears as the local associate architect to Thomas W. Lamb on the design of the well-known dual theatre complex for Marcus Lowe called the Elgin Theatre and the Winter Garden Theatre, Yonge Street near Queen Street East, TORONTO, ONT. (1913-14; restored 1987-89). Born in Watertown, N.Y. on 26 June 1881, he was the son of Mervale D. Makepeace (1849-1916), a well-known architect in Syracuse, N.Y. He trained under his father and studied architecture at Syracuse University but did not graduate, and later obtained his degree in architecture from the Univ. of Pennsylvania in 1905. He worked as chief draftsman for a large architectural firm in Chicago, and by 1908 he and his father had formed the partnership of Makepeace & Makepeace in Syracuse (William T. Comstock, The Architect’s Directory of the United States and Canada, 1909, 103). Stanley then moved to Toronto where he was employed as a draftsman with Burke, Horwood & White, and in April 1912 he formed a partnership with Arthur W. McConnell (Canadian Engineer [Montreal], xxii, 11 April 1912, 532). This collaboration ended within a year, and Makepeace was hired by Lamb as the local representative overseeing the construction of the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatre.
In 1913 Makepeace was accused of plagarizing drawings of the College Heights Apartments, as designed by Edwards & Webster of Toronto, and using them for construction of his own scheme for The Premier Apartments, King Street West at Dowling Avenue, TORONTO, ONT. (City of Toronto b.p. 3566, 25 April 1913). The City of Toronto Architect, G.F.W. Price, was implicated, and a judicial enquiry in 1913 by Judge Denton tarnished the reputation of Makepeace (City of Toronto, Minutes of Council, 24 November 1913, Report on the Investigation of the City Architect’s Dept.). Only a few references have been found to the work of Makepeace in Toronto in 1914; by late that year he had left Canada, and opened an new office in Detroit, Mich where his credits included the Knickerbocker Theatre, East Jefferson Avenue at East Grand Boulevard, DETROIT, MICH., 1916; demol. (biog. and port. in Hilary Russell, Double-Take: The Story of the Elgin & Winter Garden Theatres, 1989, 53). He later died near Cleveland, Ohio on 30 May 1959 (obit. The Telegraph [Mentor, Ohio], 1 June 1959, 4).