Harold G. Stoner (1890–1971) 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 ...

who helped define the unique architectural style of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

's west of Twin Peaks district. Born in

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, he left for Regina, Canada, to pursue a career in

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

. After working for the provincial government and completing his advanced education, he obtained an

apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a Tradesman, trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners ...

in 1913 with the notable architectural firm led by F. Chapman Clemesha and Frank H. Portnall. Two years later, Mr. Stoner arrived in the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

area and began working for architect Charles McCall in

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

. As Mr. Stoner's career progressed, he worked as the chief architect for Lang Brothers Realty. In addition to many beautiful homes west of

Twin Peaks ''Twin Peaks'' is an American Mystery fiction, mystery serial drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered on American Broadcasting Company, ABC on April 8, 1990, and originally ran for two seasons until its cance ...

and elsewhere in the Bay Area, Mr. Stoner designed the Carolands Gatehouse as well as the 'Tropic Beach' façade of the Sutro Baths and the building that housed Sally Rand's Nude Ranch at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exhibition on Treasure Island. A veteran of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Stoner was not only associated with some of the Bay Area's most historic events, places, and figures, but was responsible for creating some of its most charming architecture, including four ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

'' model homes toured by thousands in the 1920s. His artistic designs graced the covers of Walter Dixon's ''Home Designer and Garden Beautiful Magazine'' and were featured on the Golden Gate International Exposition Model Home Tour in 1939. A master of Period Revival designs, including what we now call Storybook style, he excelled at all phases of the Bay Area architectural tradition, from collaboration with noted landscape architect Thomas Church, to creating what renowned architectural historian David Gebhard lauded as “one of the country’s most elegant

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

designs.”.

References

1890 births 1971 deaths 20th-century American architects Architecture in the San Francisco Bay Area People from the San Francisco Bay Area {{US-architect-stub