Henry Clay Smith

Who was Henry Clay Smith?

Henry Clay Smith was born February 7, 1874 in Santa Clara, California, one of 12 children born to German immigrants Charles Christian Smith and Maria Pfieffer. Charles, a co-founder, with his brother of the town of Evergreen, California, now part of San Jose, was a blacksmith, who found success in real estate and lumber

Henry was able to study at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was mentored by James Hamilton Windrim. Upon graduation, Smith would spend four years working with the firm of James H. Windrim & Son, returning to the San Francisco bay area to set up practice with a partner, Louis S. Stone, in 1900. The partners would specialize in schools, apartments and houses until they dissolved their partnership in 1909. He subsequently practiced solo, continuing the development of a signature talent in the siting of buildings on San Francisco's hilly terrain, and became known as "The Hillside Architect." Smith was adept at many architectural styles; there are fine examples in Spanish, Mission and Tudor Revival, Italian Renaissance and Neo-Classicism, often informed with an Arts and Crafts sensibility. He was awarded the Jury Prize "for schoolhouse architecture" at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.