Hazel Wood Waterman (1865–1948) was an early 20th century American architect working in an

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

—inspired style in southern California. She undertook the first major renovation of Estudillo House, which is one of the oldest surviving examples of Spanish architecture in California.

Personal life and education

Hazel Wood was born on May 5, 1865, in Tuskegee, Alabama. In the early 1880s, her father, Reverend Jesse Wood, moved his family to Oroville, California. In 1882–3, while studying art at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, Hazel met her future husband, Waldo Sprague Waterman, whose father was former California governor Robert Waterman. Hazel and Waldo married in 1889, after which they moved to Cuyamaca, where Waldo was a mine supervisor. In 1891, they moved to San Diego, where Waldo got a job with a railroad. The couple had three children: Robert Wood, Helen Gardner, and Waldo Dean. They joined the local College Graduate Club, through which they made the acquaintance of several people who would later be of great importance to Hazel in her career, notably the architects

Irving Gill Irving John Gill (April 26, 1870 – October 7, 1936), was an American architect. He did most of his work in Southern California, especially in San Diego and Los Angeles. He is considered a pioneer of the modern movement in architecture. Twelve ...

and

William S. Hebbard William Sterling Hebbard (1863–1930) was an American architect most noted for his work in San Diego County, California. Hebbard briefly worked as a draftsman and assistant for the firm, Burnham and Root in Chicago, and in 1888 for Curlett, Eise ...

, landscape designer

Kate Sessions Katherine Olivia "Kate" Sessions (November 8, 1857 – March 24, 1940) was an American botanist, horticulturalist, and landscape architect closely associated with San Diego, California, and known as the "Mother of Balboa Park." Hazel helped to plan the room designs right down to details such as window frames. Gill was impressed with Hazel's ideas and thought she had a "natural talent" for architecture. Certainly she enjoyed the experience enough that she wrote an article about it in 1902 for ''House Beautiful'' magazine. It is clear from her description that she was strongly drawn to the

American Craftsman American Craftsman is an American domestic architectural style, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, which included interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts, beginning in the last years of the 19th century. Its ...

aesthetic of natural materials and unornamented forms deployed to harmonize with the surrounding landscape. Like other women architects of the day, she paid special attention to labor-saving features. Hazel's life changed dramatically in 1903, when Waldo died of pneumonia, leaving the family in difficult financial straits. Hazel started studying architectural drafting via a correspondence course offered by the International Correspondence School. Gill helped out by giving her lessons in perspective drawing at his office in off hours. In 1904, she was hired by Gill's firm, Hebbard and Gill, to do architectural drawings on cloth, and she was allowed to work at home. She also attended local lectures on the Arts and Crafts movement, and her own mature aesthetic would draw on both Gill's

Prairie School Prairie School is a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in ...

—inspired modernism and the American Craftsman style.

Career

After training with Gill, Waterman wanted to go out as an architect on her own, and Gill helped her to do this. Her first commission came in 1905 from two of his former clients, the San Diego socialite Alice Lee (after whom

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

named his eldest daughter) and her companion Katherine Teats. Lee wanted Waterman to design a group of three houses near Balboa Park, and she asked Gill if he would serve as the architect of record on the project while having Waterman do the actual design work. Gill agreed to this and supported the inexperienced Waterman by supervising her work. Waterman sited the houses in a U shape, giving them a common garden that was designed by Kate Sessions. The Lee-Teats house was completed in the Prairie style, similar to Gill's other projects at this time. Through her influence of Californian missions, her 1910 Estudillo House restoration showed the Mexican influence in her architecture. In 1906, Waterman opened her own office, though she retained close ties to Gill throughout her career. For the first five years or so, she mainly designed Arts and Crafts style residences, many of them expressing her preference for designs that blended indoors with outdoors. In 1911, she received her first non-residential commission, a new building for the Wednesday Club of San Diego (of which she was a longstanding member). For this building, she extended her style to include elements—especially stucco—paying homage to the region's Spanish architecture. Casa de Estudillo - main entrance

Waterman's most famous solo commission came in 1910 from businessman John D. Spreckels to restore Estudillo House in Old Town, San Diego. Estudillo House was one of the oldest surviving examples of Spanish architecture in California, and it had gained some national fame a generation earlier by being associated with

Helen Hunt Jackson Helen Hunt Jackson (pen name, H.H.; born Helen Maria Fiske; October 15, 1830 – August 12, 1885) was an American poet and writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Native Americans by t ...

's 1884 bestseller ''

Ramona ''Ramona'' is a 1884 American novel written by Helen Hunt Jackson. Set in Southern California after the Mexican–American War, it portrays the life of a mixed-race Scottish– Native American orphan girl, who suffers racial discrimination and ...

''. Waterman worked with historical records in determining what materials should be used in the restoration and what the final plan of the rooms and gardens should be, while also trying to satisfy Spreckels's desire for a renovation that would make it easier to market the site as a ''Ramona''-themed attraction. Her role in this restoration was recognized when Estudillo House was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey of 1937. Waterman also received a commission from the Children's Home in Balboa Park, and she designed a garden for Julius Wangenheim that in 1933 would be awarded a Certificate of Honor by the American Institute of Architects. She was able to employ several draftspeople over the years, including

Lilian Rice Lilian Jeannette Rice (June 12, 1889 – December 22, 1938) was an eco-conscious, early 20th-century American architect working primarily in the California Spanish Colonial Revival style. Several of her works are listed on the U.S. National Reg ...

and her own daughter, Helen. She collaborated with local designers and artists such as tile maker Ernest A. Batchelder. Her breadth of design interests showed in frequent papers she gave on diverse subjects to the Wednesday Club. Waterman took a break from architecture between 1915 and 1920, and seems to have stopped practicing architecture altogether in 1929. She retired in Berkeley, California, where she died on July 22, 1948. Her papers are held by the San Diego History Center.

Works

Publications

A list of written articles published by Waterman about her architectural works.

References and sources

{{DEFAULTSORT:Waterman, Hazel Wood Arts and Crafts architects Architects from California 1865 births 1948 deaths University of California, Berkeley alumni People from Tuskegee, Alabama People from Oroville, California California women architects

Personal life and education

Career

Works

Publications

Further reading

References and sources