Nationality United States | Occupation Architect | |
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Born 1885 Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin Practice Bresemann & Durfee; M. Eugene Durfee Buildings Grand Theatre; Chapman Building; Kraemer Building, Georgian Hotel Died 1941, Long Beach, California, United States Structures Fox Tucson Theatre, Samuel Kraemer Building, Grand Theatre | ||
M. Eugene Durfee (1885-1941) was an American architect prominent in Orange County, California.
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Life and career
Morien Eugene Durfee was born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin in 1885. In 1897 his family moved to Seattle, Washington, where Durfee was educated. Around 1903, at the age of 18, Durfee went to San Francisco to work for architects Shea & Shea, who were known for their commercial buildings. Three years later he returned to Seattle. In 1909 he formed a partnership in Seattle with Emmanuel J. Bresemann, whom he had known in San Francisco. In late 1913, Durfee took an extended trip to Southern California to visit his wife's family. Interested in the opportunities that it offered, Bresemann & Durfee was dissolved and Durfee moved south to Los Angeles. By early 1914 he was living and practicing in Anaheim.
As an architect, Durfee had a major impact on the physical character of Anaheim, plus the nearby cities of Fullerton and Santa Ana. However, most of downtown Anaheim (and thus Durfee's buildings) was destroyed by urban renewal in the 1980s.
Durfee relocated to Tucson, Arizona in 1921, but returned only a few months later. Other than that, he remained in Anaheim until 1927, when he moved to Los Angeles, with offices in the Commercial Exchange Building. By the time of his death in 1941, he was working in Long Beach.