Citizens National Life Insurance Building in Anchorage KY. Designed 1911, McDonald & Dodd

When the Louisville partnership of Mason Maury and WJ Dodd split in 1895, two divergent visions of design were evident between the men. Maury was drawn to the residential design innovations of Frank Lloyd Wright with their pastoral romance and disdain for historicism. Dodd was drawn to the eclectic classicism and solidity of the Beaux Arts School. Each followed his chosen path: one toward the supposedly more modern and American aesthetic; the other along the deep trace of classicism - intentionally international, historical and supposedly universal.

Winner 2003 LA-TOBY Award for Historic Property

Photo image above and to the right:  Pacific Center, formerly Pacific Mutual Building.  523 W. Sixth Street. Los Angeles CA. Designed 1921-22

More Historic Photographs at	Photographs of Berry Hill at	More Historic Photographs at
L.O.C.AmericanMemory	BerryHill MansionKY	Louisville DigitalLibrary

4th Ave.Methodist Episcopal Church,4th & St. Catherine, Louisville: Dodd & Cobb 1902	First Christian Church, 4th & Breckinridge St. Louisville: McDonald & Dodd 1910-11	St.Paul's Episcopal, 4th & Magnolia, Louisville.Designed 1895: Maury & Dodd	Masonic Theatre (Demolished), Louisville: Dodd & Cobb 1902
Tyler Hotel, 3rd & Jefferson, Louisville: McDonald & Dodd 1911. Destroyed: late 1980's.	Mary Anderson Theatre Bldg. 4th & Chestnut, Louisville: McDonald & Dodd 1907.	Louisville Country Club, Upper River Road, McDonald & Dodd 1910	Seelbach Hotel, 4th & Walnut(now Muhammad Ali) Louisville 1902 Frank Andrews & WJ Dodd
LA Linwood Dr.. Laughlin Park; Dodd-designed c.1921; for more text data CLIK PIC.	Robinson's Dept. Store. 600 W 7th. Los Angeles. Designed 1915 Dodd & Richards. Remodeled 1934	LA The Architects Bldg. Dodd & Richards 1927. Destroyed post 1952. For more text data CLIK PIC. Photo: LAPL Database	Lincoln Savings Bank. Louisville. Designed 1906 McDonald&Dodd. Destroyed. Photo: Library of Congress
Atherton Bldg. 4th & Walnut, Louisville 1901, Dodd & Cobb. Photo: D.Fowley. Destroyed	Hollywood Branch Library, Designed 1915 Dodd & Richards, renovated 1922, demolished 1939	The original "Bel Air" The Daisy Canfield House. LA, CA: Dodd-designed on hilltop.1915. Destroyed. 1915 Photo courtesy: Jeanne Huntington Cullen	Boyle Heights Branch Library, Los Angeles, Designed 1915, Dodd & Richards. Destroyed 1974.
The Courthouse of Muhlenburg County, Greenville, KY. McDonald & Dodd 1907	George Berry House (Berry Hill), Frankfort KY. Dodd & Cobb 1904. Photo courtesy of Paula Weglarz	The Courthouse of Nelson County, Bardstown KY. Designed1892 Maury & Dodd. Photo: Calvin Beale	Kentucky Bldg. World Columbian Exposition. Chicago 1893. Designed: Maury & Dodd "Colonial dignity...great fireplaces & hospitality made this...famous among the mansions." (Exposition brochure)
Sam Stone Bush house, Kenwood Hill, Louisville. Photo provided by owner. Original Dutch-Colonial structure [Left-center] 1893 Maury & Dodd. Library [not shown] added 1900 Dodd & Cobb. Modern siding covers ur-cedar clapboard.	J.L.Smyser House,1000 block Cherokee Rd, Louisville. Dodd & Cobb 1902. Photo © 2003 CTWhite	C.L.Nelson House. Cherokee Pkwy, Louisville KY. Dodd-designed 1911-12. Photo ©2003 CTWhite	The Vienna Restaurant. 133 S. 4th St. Louisville. Attributed by Hedgepeth to McDonald & Dodd 1910. Rookwood, terra cotta & art glass adorn the facade. Elaborate iron work gone. [Photo: Jack Boucher ca1979. Courtesy of Lib. of Congress American Memory Project.] Destroyed in early 1980's.

At left, a Dodd design sketched ca 1893; at right, the Ohio Lagonda Club attributed to Frank Andrews

Around 1893, WJ Dodd published a brochure promoting his designs and his work with Mason Maury. Included was Dodd's design for a Lagonda Clubhouse of Springfield Ohio. [See related design, on this page, for the Nelson County Courthouse of 1892 by Maury & Dodd.] The modern historical record attributed the Lagonda Club to Dayton Ohio architect Frank M. Andrews. Clearly, the record is incomplete.

Dodd worked closely with Andrews late in the first decade of the 20th-century on Louisville's Seelbach Hotel and the Kentucky state capitol building in Frankfort and some confusion lingers still on the best attribution of these buildings, too. The Lagonda Club images can speak for themselves and perhaps suggest an alliance of Andrews and Dodd as early as 1893. It is also possible that Andrews came on board later for an adaptation of the original Dodd design, updating the structure, and it is Andrews' name, as an Ohio architect, that has since attached itself exclusively to the building's history.

Fourth & Walnut Panoramic: Six Degrees of Separation 4th & Walnut Sts, Louisville KY ca 1970. Image fabrication: CTW; error: Atherton Bldg dates to 1901 Left to right: Stewart Dry Goods Co.-McDonald & Dodd; Seelbach Hotel-Andrews & Dodd; Walnut Street Theatre -McDonald & Dodd; 1901 Atherton Bldg. - Dodd & Cobb

From the diaries of Thomas Merton: March 19, 1958. Feast of St. Joseph "Yesterday, in Louisville, at the corner of 4th and Walnut, suddenly realized that I loved all the people and that none of them were or could be totally alien to me. As if waking from a dream - the dream of my separateness - of the 'special' vocation to be different."

ctwhit04@louisville.edu