Benjamin Stanley Simmons (March 10, 1871 – September 8, 1931) was an American

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Life

Born in

Charles County, Maryland Charles County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 166,617. The county seat is La Plata. The county was named for Charles Calvert (1637–1715), third Baron Baltimore. T ...

, in 1872, Simmons came as a child came to

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, where he would later establish his career in architecture. He received his architecture degree at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

, and continued his study at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

. He started designing and building houses in the 1890s, before he moved on to bigger commissions. In 1902, the '' Evening Star'' described Simmons as "an architect who has added to the beauty and growth of this city." He established himself as an extremely prolific architect, ultimately designing more than 280 buildings in the city. Simmons worked with every major developer, and appears to have had a particularly close working relationship with Lester A. Barr and later his son, John L. Barr, with whom he designed some of his best-known commissions. Simmons was versatile, designing a variety of building types including row houses, fraternal clubs, and commercial and institutional buildings. He seems to have had a proclivity for apartment buildings, of which he designed more than 60. Among his other works are the

National Metropolitan Bank Building The National Metropolitan Bank Building is an historic structure located at 655 15th Street, NW in Downtown Washington, D.C. History B. Stanley Simmons of the architectural firm of Gordon, Tracy & Swartout designed the Beaux-Arts style building ...

at 15th and G Streets NW (1905), the

Elks Club The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE), commonly known as the Elks Lodge or simply The Elks, is an American fraternal order and charitable organization founded in 1868 in New York City. Originally established as a social club for m ...

at 919 H Street NW (1908, demolished); and the

Fairfax Hotel The Fairfax at Embassy Row (opened as The Fairfax Hotel) was a historic luxury hotel at 2100 Massachusetts Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., in the United States. It opened in 1927 and operated under various owners and names until closing permanentl ...

at 21st and Massachusetts Avenue NW (1921). His earlier

Hume School The Hume School is an 1891 former school building in the Arlington Ridge neighborhood in Arlington County, Virginia. It is the oldest school building in Arlington County. It has been the home of the Arlington Historical Society since 1960. T ...

, built in 1891, is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

, along with the National Metropolitan Bank Building, the Wyoming Apartments, and the

Barr Building The Barr Building is an historic structure located in the Golden Triangle section of Downtown Washington, D.C. It was listed on the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites in 2012 and on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. ...

. Although he never studied at the

École des Beaux-Arts ; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centu ...

, Simmons became a student of the Beaux Arts tradition and the City Beautiful Movement. While his 19th-century speculative row houses reflect Victorian styles of architecture, his early 20th-century buildings are grander and more monumental structures that reflect a variety of academic styles inspired the

City Beautiful movement The City Beautiful movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. It was a part of th ...

, including the

Classical Revival style Neoclassical architecture, sometimes referred to as Classical Revival architecture, is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy, France and Germany. It became one of the most promin ...

and

Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th-century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of ...

. Simmons died in 1931 at 60. He was survived by a son, B. Stanley Jr., and 11 grandchildren. Many of his buildings were recognized in the late 20th century.

References

1871 births 1931 deaths People from Charles County, Maryland 19th-century American architects MIT School of Architecture and Planning alumni Architects from Washington, D.C. University of Maryland, College Park alumni 20th-century American architects Architects from Maryland {{US-architect-19C-stub