Name Frederick Trimble Role Architect | Died 1934 | |
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Structures Meadow Marsh, Fellsmere Public School, Vero Theatre | ||
Frederick H. Trimble was an American architect in Central Florida from the early 1900s through the 1920s. He worked in the Colonial Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival and Prairie Style.
Contents
Buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places include:
Background
Frederick Homer Trimble was born on June 2, 1878 and died Aug 13, 1934. His parents were Andrew Hill Trimble and Cynthia Ann Wright. Fred was one of their thirteen children: ten boys and three girls.
Frederick Homer Trimble graduated from Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, and was appointed by the Methodist Church to serve as the first industrial missionary to Foochow, China in 1905, putting to use his schooling in architecture and civil engineering. While on furlough, he married Rena Nellie Bowker, who then also went to China as a missionary in 1906. While in China Trimble served as superintendent of construction of Hwa Nan College, the Woman's College of South China.
Spanish Colonial Revival
Trimble began his architectural career in the United States in Fellsmere, Florida. He helped pioneer the use of the Spanish Colonial Revival style, well suited to the Florida environment, in the mid-1910s (for example Farmer’s Bank in Vero Beach, 1914). The style saw a national surge in popularity following the exposure it received at the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego of 1915.
Trimble was noted for his design of school buildings starting with the Fellsmere School (1915). He designed more than 50 schools in Florida. In 1918-1919, Trimble employed Ida Annah Ryan as a designing architect.
Trimble's was one of only ten architectural firms listed in the Orlando phone directory in 1926, the others being: Frank L. Bodine, Fred E. Field, David Hyer, Murry S. King, George E. Krug, Howard M. Reynolds, Ryan and Roberts (Ida Annah Ryan and Isabel Roberts) and Percy P. Turner. This group of architects was quite intentional about creating a style of architecture in Central Florida suited to the region. Here is how they described it in an article from The Florida Circle of May 1924:
"Just as architects of old created styles to harmonize with their environment, so have the architects of Florida been creating, from native motifs, a style that is carefully adapted to the climatic conditions and surroundings of the state. This style has an individuality all its own and should have a fitting name to express its origins . . . The Florida Association of Architects will give a prize of $25.00 for the name selected."
This contest was to conclude in November 1924 and the winning name announced thereafter.
Florida Southern College
In 1921, Trimble created a master plan for the campus of Florida Southern College in Lakeland, based upon Thomas Jefferson's campus plan for the University of Virginia. Frank Lloyd Wright’s later design for the campus was influenced by Trimble’s concepts, especially the domed central feature which Wright translated into a water dome, finally made operational in 2008.