Delicious, Delightful, DeLand's Athens Theater

A 1921 Italian Renaissance Revival palazzo has graced North Florida Avenue in DeLand for more than a century.  The Athens Theatre also stands as a tribute and memorial to its architect, Murry S King, who was considered in his lifetime The Dean of Orlando architects. The Athens Theatre continues to hold a place of highest esteem in the built environment of Central Florida. 

 

A visit to the theatre, whether to simply enjoy its lovely exterior, or to attend a performance in its beautiful interior, is always worthwhile.

 

The theatre is constructed of russet color brick with limestone color detailing as well as red brick accents. The symmetrical façade is balanced and pleasing to the eye. 

 

The visitor is welcomed to the theatre by a triple-arched entry in the central part of the facade. The middle arch holds the box office and the other two arches are the entrance doors. Above these is the marquee, with the curved sign that says “Theatre”.  This marquee partly obscures the triple square windows that balance with the triple entry arches below. Above them is a rectangular inset dating to the building’s creation that says: Athens.

 

On either side of the entry are large shallow rectangular niches, framed in a contrasting red brick with white accents; these are used to displayed posters of current or future productions. Above these, are very tall, rounded windows, shaped like the central portion of a Palladian window, which echo the arched curves of the main entrance.

 

Above these features is as a continuous attic story, with rectangular windows using a combined cross and x design. This motif was popular in Beaux Arts architecture and also often employed in civic Prairie Style architecture. Above these is a large limestone color cornice, allowing the eye to visually pause as it looks upward. But the eye then continues upward to the red brick parapets with gently curved arches above each of three sections of the façade, so that the arch theme that began at the main entry doors and was continued by the large windows is concluded against the sky. This is a very pleasing and harmonious effect, in what is essentially a Beaux Arts style composition, that has elements both Italian Renaissance and Prairie style.

 

Prairie style? Yes, especially noticeable in the corner of the display windows. The horizontal sill, water table, and cornice, emphasizing the horizontal, which was a hallmark of the Prairie style. The vertical embellishments at the top center of each of the four brick pilasters. Which include four faces that look down on the passerby, and four caduceus. 

 

Sprinkled attractively here and there are white tiles that enliven the brick. The cartouche in the central parapet arch is especially pleasing in this regard.

 

The DeLand community was especially proud of this exterior design for number of years, so that one would hardly guess that a very bizarre transformation took place in the middle of the 20th century, when the entire façade above the street level was sheathed in what was thought at that time and very modern and stylish design, with a gigantic sign, announcing the Athens as the central part of the facade, and very large display spaces on either side. All of the windows were obscured, and a new shallow angled marquee was created that spanned the entire building. Happily all of this has been cleared away, during major restoration, so that the original design can be seen, appreciated, and enjoyed for future generations.

 

Up near the cornice, there are four identical sculpted faces below each of which is a caduceus, that is, a staff entwined by two aches with wings. It is not clear why the architect chose these. More expected for the decoration of a theater might have been mask of tragedy and comedy, perhaps. Or depictions of the muses of the lively arts from antiquity. The face seems to be that of the Greek god Pan, indicated by the curly horns on their head. Although Dionysus is another possibility. 

 

Continuing our study of the decoration, our eyes go to the shield forming the central cartouche, upon which is a date number, 1921, the date the theatre construction began.  

 

The limestone color decorations are most likely architectural terra-cotta ornament, created to resemble limestone.  This was an exterior material of choice in the first quarter of the 20th century.  It is highly probable that the ornamentation was made by the American Terra-Cotta Company owned by William Day Gates (also the makers of Teco Pottery). The skillful modeling of the four faces at the cornice look to be the work of their gifted artisans. 

 

Not incidentally, the tallest building in the world at that time, the Woolworth Building, is entirely clad in architectural terra-cotta, as is the famous Flatiron Building, also in Manhattan.

 

The interior is in keeping with the exterior, with arched themes in the two large private box openings, the curve of the proscenium, and the curving forms of the balcony railing.  Elegant multi-globed chandeliers are suspended from the coffered ceiling.  There is a lovely bas relief above the proscenium in which six muses of Greek mythology are depicted in what resembles Wedgwood Jasperware.   The simple and elegant design is finished in a rich color scheme of red and cream.  

 

Murry S. King

 

Murry S. King (1870-1927) was a native of Western Pennsylvania who conducted his architectural career there, and more significantly in Central Florida.  King is considered the Dean of Orlando Architects, and was the first person to receive a license from the Florida chapter of the American Institute of Architects.  In addition to his influential and impressive body of work, King was the leader of a collection of significantly likeminded architects practicing in Central Florida during the boom decade of the 1920s.  This Orlando Group of architects worked to create an architecture that was appropriate to the Florida environment.  In “The Florida Circle” of May 1924, they described it (in part):

 

"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…” 

 

Murry S. King designed many other notable works in Central Florida, including the Angebilt Hotel (27 N. Orange Ave.), the Beardall Residence (700 Euclid Avenue), the Woodruff Residence (236 S. Lucerne Circle E,), and his last work, the Orange County Regional History Center (formerly the Orange County Courthouse].

 

King was adept at many different architectural effects, such as his Spanish Revival Park Lake Presbyterian Church neoclassical Orange County Courthouse. 

 

 

Pounds Building is Every Ounce a Treasure

 

Winter Garden, Florida, has a beautiful stroll-able downtown, complete with median plantings down the center of Plant Street, an interactive water feature, and a vintage caboose, as well as the trademark town clock. Many restaurants and shops beckon visitors as they explore this vibrant small town. 

When you get to the corner of West Plant Street and South Lakeview Avenue, you have arrived at the Pounds Motor Company Building.  An identifying bronze tablet tells you something of the significance of the building.  

 

A pioneer in advocating gasoline farm equipment (as opposed to mule powered) Hoyle Pounds established his business at the corner of Plant and Lakeview.  In addition to farm tractors he also sold Ford automobiles.  The building he commissioned from David Burns Hyer is still in use one hundred years later.

 

David Burns Hyer was one of a dozen or so architects practicing in Central Florida in the 1920s.  Hyer had come to the Orlando area from Charleston, South Carolina, and would return there again as the decade and the Florida land boom ended.  He counted among his clients innovative Central Florida go-getters like Hoyle Pounds., who among other achievements, invented the rubber tractor tire.

  

The impression the building gives is one of basic simple solid construction. You might say, no frills.  And that was intentional.  The Pounds Motor Company Building was created to showcase, sell, and service farm equipment and cars made by the Ford Motor Company, as well as to dispense first Texaco and thereafter Gulf Oil gasoline.  The resultant work by architect Hyer fulfilled all of those functions and also contributed to the streetscape “look” of Winter Garden.  It fits the location and the needs of the client.

 

Today, the causal observer might have a tendency to overlook the elements of the design that made it successful inside and out.  The exterior red brick is practically maintenance free for the owner, and is also part of a group of red brick structures that give Winter Garden its signature look.  The Pounds Building holds its own and is in harmony with other nearby structures on Plant Street including the contemporaneous Edgewater Hotel.  

 

The front elevation of the Pounds Building is immediately understood.  The big plate glass display windows flanking the central doors tell us that something was to be showcased there, for anyone who happened by.  Correct.  Tractors would have temped the owners of groves and farms from the surrounding area.  Above, a string of nine large windows indicated that the work going on inside was well lighted by the Florida sunshine.  It was a good location for the machine shop, providing employees with a space that was more comfortable, and therefore more productive. Along the roofline, there was a nod to Mediterranean or Spanish style, a stepped parapet that has a horizonal line modulated by verticals.  

 

One also notices the trapezoidal capitals on the brick piers.  They give visual interest, and yet their function is mainly  structural.  The corner at Plant and Lakeview was once an open, covered filing station for vehicles to pull into, between those brick piers.  Vintage photos show it featuring a round topped gas pump.  

 

Along the South Lakeview elevation, one sees several large garage door openings.  Only the one closest to the corner of Lakeview and Tremaine remains unchanged since its inception – it is mufti-hinged, paneled wood.  One can envision the other openings, now boarded up, being exactly the same.  

Along the second floor the large windows, like the ones on the front, continue in groups of threes, giving a geometric pattern on this long side of the building.  Similar windows were on the long opposite wall of the building where the Garden Theater now stands.

 

The Pounds Motor Company Building was designed solidly, to last. A worthy goal for an industrial / commercial building.   It has done exactly that, serving its original owners from 1926 and serving its current owners since 1985.  The Pounds building has affinities to the most famous early 20^th century automotive industrial building, the Packard Automotive Plant in Detroit by Albert Kahn.  Modern, efficient, with clean horizontal lines rendered in red brick, the celebrated Packard plant was the inspiration for industrial buildings for decades thereafter, including this one.

About the Architect:

David Burns Hyer

 

David Burns Hyer was born in Charleston, SC, on March 21, 1875 to parents James S. and Ella Payne Hyer.  His early education was in the Charleston schools, and while still a boy he began working in the office of S. Louis Simons.  When Simons merged with a partner to create Simsons-Mayrant Company in 1892, Hyer remained in their employ, until he founded his own architectural practiced. 

 

In his professional life, Hyer maintained offices in Charleston SC except in the 1920’s when his office was in Orlando FL.  Many fine examples of his work in South Carolina remain to this day.

 

In Central Florida, he worked with architect John Arthur Rogers before establishing his own practice in Orlando.  Hyer’s masterpiece is the ideally situated Grace Phillips Johnson mansion “O-Po-Le-O” (“House Between the Waters”) on the isthmus between Lake Concord and Lake Adair.  A grand Mediterranean Revival estate, it is visible from I-4 across Lake Concord, and is locally known as “The Swan Boat House”.  The house continues in private hands and is exceedingly well maintained.  Hyer’s commercial work in Florida incudes the Pounds Motor Company Building (1926)  in Winter Garden, a Prairie-meets-Mediterranean brick building that has been carefully preserved by its owners since the 1980s, Burkett Engineering. Other works by Hyer in Florida are continuing to be identified. When he returned to Charleston permanently, he left James Gamble Rogers II in charge of his Florida work that had not yet been completed. 

 

In 1904, Hyer married Susan Yeadon Mazyck.  They were the parents of four children: David B. Jr., Yeadon M., Robert P., and Helen.

 

Throughout his life Hyer was accorded the nickname “Neighbor” because invariably he greeted others in that friendly way.  He was said to have been of a most congenial disposition, which surely served him well in the pursuit of his profession. He had many repeat clients, and they were glad to wait however long it might take him to prepare his designs, even if at a more leisurely pace than other architects. Hyer was an avid golfer and was constantly trying to improve his game. 

 

Late in life Hyer had one leg amputated. He was awaiting an adjusted leg prosthesis when, after a brief illness, he died in Charleston on December 11, 1942 at the age of 67.  He is buried alongside his wife in the old historic Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston.

(Do you have a photo of David Burns Hyer?  I would love to have a copy.  Please get in touch with me.  Thanks!)