Roy Place (1887 – 1950) was a

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

architect. Born in

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

in 1887, Place moved to Tucson in 1917 after working in Chicago and the Boston firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge. Place partnered with John Lyman in 1919, together constructing over 20 buildings in Tucson. Place worked independently from 1924 to 1940 as the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

's Chief architect. Roy's son, Lew Place, joined the firm in 1930, became a partner in Place and Place in 1940, and managed the firm after his father's death. Lew Place designed several University of Arizona buildings as well as Pueblo, Rincon and Salpointe High Schools. Lew was also the sculptor for the two figures on the Cochise County Courthouse. Place's sophisticated Spanish Colonial Revival building shaped the character of Downtown Tucson from the mid-1920s until

urban renewal Urban renewal (sometimes called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address real or perceived urban decay. Urban renewal involves the clearing ...

of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Buildings included the Plaza Theater (constructed in 1930, closed and demolished on May 14, 1968, for the widening of Congress Street), the Montgomery Ward Building (striped and resurfaced on the corner of Pennington and Stone Avenue, under restoration in 2010) and The Pioneer Hotel (refaced and stripped of its ornamentation). The domed and pink plaster

Pima County Courthouse Pima County Courthouse is the former main county courthouse building in downtown Tucson, Arizona It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was designed by Roy Place in 1928 in Mission Revival architecture, Mission Revival and ...

is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The courthouse and the Davis Clinic Building are Place's only extant surviving examples of this architectural style in the downtown Tucson, but other examples abound around the city (see Extant Buildings, below). The never realized ‘“Pueblo Nuevo Lodge”’ was designed by Roy Place and developer G.G. Souerbry. Conceived as a grand pueblo revival luxury 24-unit apartment Co-Op, the site occupied a Tucson city block on Speedway Boulevard from Martin to Warren. The elegant two-story design featured courtyards, pueblo massing and environmentally sensitive details. Each unit was conceived with a second story bedroom with two porches to maximize open air sleeping. The development was advertised as the “most beautiful and attractive ever constructed in Tucson” and was to feature: Philippine mahogany trim, colored stucco walls, steel casement windows, celotex insulation, bean ceilings, tile, oak and linoleum floors and kitchen servidors.

Extant buildings

* Benedictine Sanctuary (1939-1940) * The Pioneer Hotel (1928) *

(1929) * Veterans Administration Hospital in Tucson(1929) * Former

Montgomery Ward Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a mail-order business and later a department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001; its common nickname was "Monkey Wards". ...

Building (1929) * Roskruge School (1908) * Sam Hughes Elementary School (1927) * El Conquistador Water Tower (1929) * Mansfeld Junior High School (1930) * Reilly Funeral Home, remodel late 1920s/early 1930s, Pueblo Deco. Original architect Henry Jaastad * Cochise County Courthouse in Bisbee (1930): An example of Pueblo Deco architecture. * U.S. Post Office.

Yuma, Arizona Yuma is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. The city's population was 95,548 at the 2020 census, up from the 2010 census population of 93,064. Yuma is the principal city of the Yuma, Arizona, Metropolitan ...

(1933): 370 West Third Street. Yuma, Arizona. * Hotel Congress, remodel (1934), remodel of second story after fire destroyed second and third story. Third story never rebuilt. Original architect, Alexander Curlette (Los Angeles), 1919 * University of Arizona Humanities Building (1935) * University of Arizona Anthropology Building (1935) * University of Arizona Chemistry-Physics Building (1936) * University of Arizona Centennial Hall (1936-1937) * University of Arizona Gila Hall (1937) * University of Arizona Steward Observatory (1922) * University of Arizona Yuma Hall (1937) * University of Arizona Administration Building (1937) * Tucson Unified School District Educational Building (1941) 1010 East 10th Street; An example of Pueblo Revival architecture. * Bank Building; 150 N. Stone Ave. (1955) Tucson, Arizona. (Lew Place as Roy passed in 1950.) * Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind. * Former Sears & Roebuck, 81 N. 6th Avenue (1929; remodel and north addition 1940, and 1947 south wing addition (existing)); An example of Art Deco. The 1940 north addition was demolished in 1984 for a parking lot structure. Casa Grande High School (1920–21), East Florence Blvd., Casa Grande, Arizona

Demolished buildings

* Plaza Theater (1930)

References

Other sources

* * * *
The University of Arizona Comprehensive Campus Plan: Appendix 5 List of Historic Buildings: (PDF)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Place, Roy 1887 births 1950 deaths University of Arizona people Architects from Arizona Architects from San Diego Artists from Tucson, Arizona Architects from Tucson, Arizona