In July 1948, Millard Sheets typed up a follow-up note to Jack
Beardwood, a TIME bureau chief and Millard’s connection to LIFE magazine. “It
just occurred to me,” he wrote, ” it might be wise to suggest…that the magazine
should not use the word ‘architect’ in the article in connection with my name.”
As Sheets noted, “not having an actual architectural degree, along with many
others who design,” he had no need to claim the title and “wav[e] a red flag in
front of the A.I.A.,” architecture’s national professional
association.
Sheets made clear that he did the overall design, approaching it as art in its totality–but that there was always an architect there to sign off, to make working drawings, and to see to it that regulations were followed. In the letter from 1948, Sheets mentioned Benjamin H. Anderson as the architect of record on the air school projects; as discussed here, Rufus Turner has shared memories of the studio beginning in the late 1950s.
But, as soon as there was a Sheets Studio to be part of, the studio’s principal architect was S. David Underwood. Rufus Turner has memories of seeing Underwood hard at work in Sheets’ large personal studio at the Padua Hills house–and even of Underwood having a cot there to sleep, before the Foothill Boulevard studio was constructed, after a 1958 groundbreaking.
Born in Montreal in 1917, Underwood had grown up in Glendale, California, and his first commercial architecture was for a schoolmate, Robert C. Wian, designing distinctive, “landmark” architecture for the new branches of his hamburger stand, Bob’s Big Boy. This iconic work stood out among roadside architecture, much as Sheets would need for Home Savings.
Underwood came to work with Sheets in 1955, just as Sheets’ work in murals and interior design was blossoming into the design of complete buildings, with the mainstay of the office’s work, at the behest of Howard Ahmanson, begun with a phone call in 1953, for both Home Savings (Underwood worked on 16 locations, 1956-1962) and Guaranty Savings and Loan (three locations, including Redwood City) in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Underwood made all this work possible, Sheets understood. Millard wanted to sketch the silhouette of the building and design its artistic flourishes, but he wanted someone else to decide how to route the pipes, support the roof, or create drawings for permits and contractors. This synergy of vision and technical details was all necessary for the art to emerge.
Sheets was not only a matchmaker in the design world. Underwood’s son Stephen recalls a story about how his dad proposed to his mom, Martha Menke. Sheets and Underwood were in Italy sourcing travertine for one of the many Home Savings projects and during dinner at an upscale restaurant in Rome, Sheets who evidently had been hearing about David Underwood’s interest in Martha, persuaded David to make a transatlantic call from the restaurant and propose. They married in 1962 and divorced in 1979.
By 1962, Underwood left the studio to set up his own architectural office in Claremont, though he continued to collaborate with Millard Sheets on some projects, including the Garrison Theater. Underwood continued to design buildings, including a lot of distinctive office space in Claremont, including the San Jose Avenue office building for the Carpenters’ Union, and the Midland Mutual Insurance building at Harvard and Fourth, until his retirement in 1990. Underwood died in 2002.
Portions courtesy of Adam Aaronson's blog - http://adamarenson.com
