M. Leo designed Old Tampa City Hall, Centro Asturiano, Cuban Club, Italian Club, Scottish Rite Temple, Tampa YMCA, First National Bank, Sarasota High School, Bryan Elementary, Palace of Florence, Tampa Yacht Club, the Leiman-Wilson House, Snell Arcade, an addition to the Florida State Capitol, and the list goes on and on. In 1920s Temple Terrace he designed the public buildings and about 20 houses, making this the largest collection of his work in one place.
The back story of how this extensive drawing collection came to be discovered, consolidated, and relocated to its final home at the History Center is intriguing and serendipitous.
The story begins with M. Leo Elliott’s granddaughter and South Tampa resident, Lynn Elliott Rydene. Lynn and Creative Loafing contrbutor Grant Rimbey have been looking for the lost drawing archive of her grandfather for many years. Lynn recalled seeing the collection as a girl when she visited his office, but we assumed it had long ago been destroyed. Once a year Lynn and I give a presentation on her grandfather’s architecture for the American Institute of Architects Tampa Bay “Summer Exploring Architecture Studio” program for aspiring young architects, and the highlight of those classes was always the single drawing set that Lynn had of her grandfather’s work: The Cuban Club (1917) in Ybor.
- Tampa Bay History Center
- M. Leo Elliott’s drawing of the front elevation of the Cuban Club, 2010 Avenida Republica de Cuba, Ybor
Fast forward to about a year ago. Two Temple Terrace women were having a conversation on a Sunday morning after church. Carolyn Crakow mentioned to Doris Rimbey (my mom) that her husband Fred’s office, Carrastro and Associates, was in the process of replacing an air conditioning unit, many rolls of old drawings were in the way, and did I want any of them? Carolyn knew I was a project manager at Elements with a keen interest in the historic architecture of Florida. I contacted Fred, he mentioned many of the drawings were old, and quite a few were drawn by some guy named “Elliott”. At that point I sat down. I visited Fred’s office and the cache was indeed the lost collection of the drawings of M. Leo Elliott!
Lynn was excited at the news and we set up a meeting to discuss what should be done with the drawings with representatives from the Tampa Bay History Center, USF Special Collections and School of Architecture and Community Design, American Institute of Architects Tampa Bay, Tampa Preservation, Inc, Temple Terrace Preservation Society, Linda Saul-Sena, Del Acosta, Gus Paras AIA, Stephanie Ferrell FAIA, and other folks interested in historic architecture and preservation. Paul Carrastro of Carrastro and Associates graciously agreed to store the extensive drawing collection until this ad hoc committee could find a suitable place for it.
Lynn Elliott’s preference was that the collection be located in the Tampa Bay History Center because it’d be accessible to the public, and Rodney Kite Powell of the Center spearheaded the formal transfer of the drawings from the Carrastro office. A partnership between the Tampa Bay History Center and the USF School of Architecture and Community Design was formed and through the guidance of USF Associate Professor Trent Green, USF students have been digitally scanning the drawings of the collection so they can be accessible interactively to the public and scholars via computer. In addition to M. Leo Elliott, the collection also contains work by local architects Elliot Fletcher, Frank Valenti, and Franklin O. Adams.
- Tampa Bay History Center
- M. Leo Elliott’s drawing of the side elevation of the Cuban Club, 2010 Avenida Republica de Cuba, Ybor
The discovery of large collections of architectural drawings (especially 85 years after creation) is extremely rare. Drawing rolls take up lots of space, they deteriorate, and often when architectural firms close or change hands much of the older work is simply discarded. In the entire country there are less than a hundred architectural drawing collections.
The exquisite architecture of M. Leo Elliott, and the historic architecture of our region in general, has not had an easy time being preserved and respected in our “out with the old” Tampa Bay culture. “In a 1979 survey, the Tampa/Hillsborough County Preservation Board counted 88 historic buildings in downtown Tampa. Since then, 29 have been bulldozed. In all, more than half of the 200-plus historic buildings that by 1920 housed a vibrant downtown business district are gone.” many historic buildings sites are now simply weedy surface parking lots or are subject to the local favorite “demolition by neglect,” allowing a building to fall simply by not maintaining it.
The sour turning point for many local preservationists occurred in 1993 when they lost a long and bitter fight to preserve two seminal buildings by Elliott, the 13-story First National Bank and the glazed terra cotta Tampa Gas Company. The Lykes Brothers were successful in their quest for demolition and the only remnants Lynn Elliott has of those buildings are fragments she obtained by dodging construction barriers to pull pieces from the rubble while demolition was occurring. The demolitionists even created a smear campaign booklet on her grandfather that attempted to prove that Elliott was not a competent architect. Justice prevails in that the recently discovered drawing collection proves that crazy assertion to be nonsense! This protracted demolition event ripped the heart out of the local preservation community and many folks simply gave up.
The M. Leo Elliott Drawing Collection Committee views this collection as equivalent to the incredible Burgert Brothers Photographic Collection housed in the John Germany Library, just in a different format. It is the hope that the drawing collection will serve as a stark reminder and a wakeup call to the regional architectural and preservation community that Tampa Bay once created elegant, incredible, beautiful and bold architecture and planning reflective of our local culture and climate, rooted in our past, and that one day we may do so again. What makes the discovery of this drawing collection so very rare is that it numbers around 600 drawing rolls with 14,000 sheets of drawings that have been stored for the last 40 years in a dry, air-conditioned space. The drawings in the collection date from 1912 thru the 1960s and chronicle the evolution of a seminal Florida architecture firm as mentors retire and their apprentices take the helm.
The Drawing Collection Committee is currently pursuing grants from the Graham Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor for the collection, or would like to make a donation, please contact Tampa Bay History Center Saunders Foundation Curator of History Rodney Kite-Powell at (813) 675-8984 or email [email protected].
“The Built, The Lost, The Dream: The Architecture of M. Leo Elliott” opens Friday, June 10 from noon to 3 p.m. and Saturday from 2 — 5 p.m. The exhibit will be at Tampa Regional Artists which is located at 705 Swann Avenue in Tampa. The free exhibition will be open thereafter from noon to 3 p.m. every day but Monday through July 8. There’s a Special Event Thursday, June 9, 6pm to 8pm titled “A Celebration of M. Leo Elliott”; sponsored by AIA Tampa Bay, and features a chat on the significance of M. Leo Elliott by Lynn Elliott Rydene, myself and USF School of Architecture and Community Design Associate Professor Trent Green. The exhibit will feature accurate reproductions of some of the drawings of M. Leo Elliott, as well as building fragments and 3-D architectural models of some of his buildings created by USF School of Architecture and Community Design students. Parking is available at Gorrie Elementary and Wilson Middle School. The exhibition is a collaboration between the Tampa Bay History Center, Tampa Regional Artists (TRA), and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Tampa Bay Chapter, the USF School of Architecture, and Tampa Preservation, Inc. (TPI). For additional information on the exhibit, please call (813) 251-3780.
