Hazel Wood Waterman’s Climate-Appropriate Designs
Hazel Wood was born in Tuskegee, Alabama in 1865 and moved to California with her family as a young child. She studied art at the University of California-Berkeley for a year before leaving after the 1882 – 1883 school year to marry Waldo Waterman.
Waterman house designed by Gill.
The couple moved east of San Diego where Waldo managed his family’s gold mine. When the economic depression led to the sale of the mine in 1894, the Watermans relocated to San Diego. Owing to investments in railroads, they were able to hire architect Irving Gill to design a house that would overlook the San Diego Harbor for them and their three children. Working with Gill on the design of her home proved to be a turning point for Hazel Wood Waterman.
Irving Gill (1870-1936) became known “for his pioneering and creative use of forms and aesthetics which places him at the dawn of the Modern Movement in architecture,” a webpage about Gill’s architectural legacy states. Impressed with Hazel Waterman’s aesthetic sensibility and creativity, Gill suggested his client consider a career in architecture, should she ever need to earn her own living.
That day arrived with Waldo Waterman’s sudden death in 1903. Hazel Waterman enrolled in a correspondence course in drafting and soon found employment working from home as a drafter for Gill’s firm. Among the projects she worked on sequentially were three houses for socialite and real estate investor Alice Lee. Lee requested that Gill have Waterman design her third house under his supervision.
Waterman also contributed articles to popular periodicals. In her 1903 The House Beautiful article “The Influence of an Olden Time,” she shared her appreciation of the historic Spanish architecture of the region, writing, “Not only is this style of architecture suited to the country, but it has been bequeathed to it by history and tradition.” Waterman seemed particularly drawn to its integration with the outdoors, writing, “The patio was the very soul of the hacienda of the vast estate.”
After opening her own office in San Diego, Waterman became responsible for the 1909 restoration of La Casa de Estudillo, a rancho in town. She researched methods of construction like adobe to accurately preserve the building’s historic features. She also designed the landscape for the rancho’s courtyard, although without the building restoration’s historical accuracy.
In addition to homes, Waterman’s work included several institutional projects. In 1910, Waterman was commissioned to design a building for The Wednesday Club, a women’s club to which she belonged, and from 1912 to 1925, Waterman worked on a several buildings for the city’s Children’s Home. Waterman’s daughter Helen studied architecture at Berkeley and worked for Hazel’s firm in 1914.
A San Diego garden with architecture by Waterman, from House & Garden, August 1920.
Waterman had a life-long interest in outdoor living. In her 1902 The House Beautiful article “On My Friend’s Porch,” she wrote, “It is an almost never-abiding joy of our Southern California life that we may be out of doors.” In a 1920 House & Garden article about an urban garden for which she designed the tea house, walls, pools, and other architectural features (plantings were by Kate O. Sessions), Waterman wrote, “The fundamental charm of the garden lies in its livableness. No one enters without becoming conscious of its happy mingling of indoors and out.”
After retiring in 1929, Waterman moved to Berkeley. She died in 1948 at age 82.
Please subscribe to The Architectress.
Sources
Charles A. Birnbaum and Julie K. Fix, Pioneers of American Landscape Design II: An Annotated Bibliography (U .S. Department of the Interior, 1995).
Judith Paine, “Pioneer Women Architects,” in Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective, ed. Susana Torre (Whitney Library of Design, 1977).
Sarah Allaback, The First American Women Architects (University of Illinois Press, 2008).
Hazel W. Waterman, “The Influence of an Olden Time,” The House Beautiful, June 1903.
Hazel W. Waterman, “On My Friend’s Porch,” The House Beautiful, September 1902.
Hazel W. Waterman, “A City Garden in Southern California,” House & Garden, August 1920.
Robert Bruegmann and Kim Spurgeon, “Architectural Data Form: Alice Lee House, HABS No. CA-2161,” (National Park Service, 1975).