Alexander Blount Mahood was born in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1888. He attended public schools, after which he attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and studied in the ateliers of Mssrs. Chifflot and Duquesne. After his return from France in 1911, he took a position as draftsman in the Lynchburg firm of Frye & Chesterman. He soon made his way to Roanoke, where he also worked for Henry H. Huggins and Homer M. Miller. In 1912 Miller elevated Mahood to a partner, in Miller & Mahood. Miller had, in 1911, landed a major commission in nearby Bluefield, the Law & Commerce Building - the largest office building in the growing city. Mahood was sent to Bluefield to open a branch office, where he would supervise construction and court new business.
Upon its completion in 1913, the Mahood offices were moved into the new Law & Commerce Building. The partnership with Miller was dissolved in 1914, and Mahood remained in Bluefield. He remained in private practice until 1923, when he established a partnership with Frederick C. Van Dusen, which lasted until 1926. He was again alone until 1940, when he added Richard T. Snellings of Charlottesville as an associate. His son, A. B. Mahood, Jr. was also made an associate, in 1949. The firm would remain as such until 1970, when Mahood died.
Legacy
Mahood was the architect for the West Virginia Hotel (1923) and many of his major residential works are in the South Bluefield area. These included the Country Club and the Country Club Hill section where the Bluefield Club was constructed in 1920. Mahood designed mansions for magnates of the southern coalfields, and embellished Bluefield's residential districts with some of the grandest Georgian Revival houses in the state.
He designed the Women's Dormitory at the West Virginia University in Morgantown, United States Steel Building in Gary, Skyway Drive-In Theater in Brush Fork, the Deco-Style Mercer County Courthouse (1930–1931) in Princeton and the Guyan Theater in Logan. He also designed a number of coal company offices and stores in the southern West Virginia region. He may have also designed the McNeer House (1919) near Salt Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
He died in 1970, at Bluefield, West Virginia.
Miller & Mahood, 1912-1914
1912 - Masonic Temple, 203 Federal St, Bluefield, West Virginia
