FERREE, Harold Clinton (1879-1965), active in Victoria, B.C. from 1910 until 1917. Ferree was born in New Rutland, Illinois on 12 February 1879. He was the son of Albert C. Ferree, an architect active in Chicago from 1890, and he likely trained under his father before 1900. However, rather than remain under his father’s tutelage, he decided to pursue a career as an artist (in 1900), and by 1902 he was recorded as a draftsman in Chicago in “Room 615 at 175 Dearborn Avenue” (Lakeside City Directory of Chicago, 1902, p. 1847). Subsequent research confirms that Room 615 was the office Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926), a prominent architect best known for his sumptuous designs of lavish country homes built for wealthy Chicago businessmen on sites facing Lake Michigan. By 1906 Ferree was listed as “designer” with another architectural office, located in “Room 1618, in the Monadnock Block” (Lakeside City Directory of Chicago, 1906, p. 760). The legendary Monadnock Block was home to several architects, and Room 1618 was the location of the leading firm of Holabird & Roche, Architects.
Armed with his resume of impressive credentials from these architectural offices in Chicago, Ferree moved to San Francisco, Calif. shortly after the earthquake of April 1906 to take up a new post with the staff of the City Architect’s Office, and he may have contributed his own designs for civic buildings rebuilt in the period of 1907 to 1909 (San Francisco City Directory, 1909, p. 589). Ferree left his position with the City Architect’s Office in San Francisco in 1910 and moved to Victoria, B.C. where he joined the office of Thomas Hooper. A photographic portrait of Ferree, listed as Chief Draughtsman in the Hooper office, appears in a self-promotional folio produced by the Hooper office, and now held at the British Columbia Public Archives in Victoria, entitled “Thomas Hooper Architect - Victoria & Vancouver B.C. A.D. MCMX” (BCPA - Call No. NW/ 720.9711/H788T).
After leaving the office of Thomas Hooper in Victoria, Ferree joined another local office, George C. Mesher & Co., Architects and Builders, and served as their manager and in-house designer for the company in 1912-13, and it is Ferree who may be credited with the remarkably sophisticated design of the substantial residence for H. Goulding Wilson, on St. Charles Street, Victoria (1912). A suite of three architectural drawings for this house, all signed by Ferree as manager for the Mesher company, can now be found at the City of Victoria Archives (Residential Building Plan Data Base, BP04139, dated 1 June 1912). These confirm that Ferree is almost certainly the author of this convincing Arts & Crafts residential landmark which still stands today, intact and unaltered, as of 2020. This building has often been erroneously credited to a mysterious “Mr. Charles King, architect of San Francisco” as the author of these plans, but this cannot be substantiated, since no published references to a person by this name, either in newspapers or in city directories or architectural journals from the San Francisco area, have been found in local archives or libraries in that region.
Ferree left California in 1917 and moved back to Chicago before leaving again, this time for Oakland, Calif. in 1924 where he continued his professional practise, specializing in the design of retail stores in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco and elsewhere. One of his last commissions was for the Isaac Magnin Department Store & Salon in Seattle, Washington. Ferree died at Oakland, Calif. on 18 November 1965 (obituary Oakland Tribune, 23 Nov. 1965, 38; biography and works in D. Luxton, Building The West, 2003, 463, 499; inf. Jim Wolf, New Westminster, B.C.)
(works in British Columbia)
(with George C. Mesher & Co.) PORT ALBERNI, B.C., major addition to the Somas Hotel, Argyle Street, 1912 (Victoria Daily Times, 31 Jan. 1912, 15, descrip. & illus., with perspective drawing signed “H.C. Ferree”)
VICTORIA, B.C., residence for Herbert Goulding Wilson, St. Charles Street near Richardson Street, 1912 (dwgs. at City of Victoria Archives, BP 04139, 1 June 1912, three sheets of plans, signed “H.C. Ferree”; M. Segger & D. Franklin, Exploring Victoria’s Architecture, 1996, 186, but erroneously credited to Charles King, purportedly an architect of San Francisco for whom no published records can be found; D. Luxton, Building The West: The Early Architects of British Columbia, 2003, 238-39, 499)
VICTORIA, B.C., Wescott Building, for Alfred E. Wescott Dry Goods Ltd., Douglas Street at Boleskin Road, 1913, but not built (Architect, Builder & Engineer [Vancouver], 15 April 1913, 12, descrip.)
VICTORIA, B.C., Robert T. Williams Ltd., Yates Street, new retail store front, 1913-14; demol. (Daily Building Record [Vancouver], 9 May 1913, 2)
VICTORIA, B.C., residence for William B. Garrard, in the Craigdarroch subdivision, 1913 (Victoria Daily Times, 12 June 1913, 14, t.c.; Daily Colonist [Victoria], 17 June 1916, 4, legal lawsuit and court case)
VICTORIA, B.C., residence for Mr. Royal H. Green, Joan Crescent, in the Craigdarroch subdivision, 1913 (Victoria Daily Times, 14 July 1913, 5; Daily Building Record [Vancouver[, 17 July 1913, 1)
VICTORIA, B.C., two retail stores for James S. Brandon, Fort Street, 1913 (Daily Building Record [Vancouver], 9 Aug. 1913, 3)
(with Loring P. Rixford and Alfred Kuhn) VICTORIA, B.C., Royal Jubilee Hospital, 1914 (Daily Building Record [Vancouver], 21 March 1914, 1; 22 March 1914, 5)
VICTORIA, B.C., residence for Frederick W. Ziegler, Princess Avenue near Vancouver Street, 1914 (Daily Building Record [Vancouver], 2 May 1914, 4)
VICTORIA, B.C., Princess Theatre, Yates Street near Blanchard Street, a conversion of the former A.O.U.W. Hall, 1914 (Daily Building Record [Vancouver], 1 June 1914, 1; Victoria Daily Times, 4 Aug. 1914, 5, descrip.)
(works in the U.S.A.)
OAKLAND, CALIF., KLS Radio Village, 21st Street near Harrison Boulevard, broadcast studios for Warner Brothers Ltd., 1936-37 (Oakland Tribune, 10 April 1937, 10, illus. & descrip.)
COLORADO SPRINGS, COL., The Cheyenne Building, renovation and restoration of a an existing commercial block, 1938 (City of Colorado Historic Preservation Board, Central Downtown Historic Resources Walking Tour, 2004, Building No. 6, illus.)
OAKLAND, CALIF., The Miller, Collischonn & Westdahl Building, Washington Street at 11th Street, major additions and alterations, 1941 (Oakland Tribune, 6 March 1941, illus. & descrip.)