Isaabel Roberts

Here is a snapshot of Miss Roberts. Date and location unknown.

Isabel Roberts (1871-1955) worked in the Oak Park Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright. Long overlooked by architectural historians, Isabel was an architect in her own right, both in Mr. Wright's office and thereafter. Isabel Roberts spent three years in New York City, studying architecture in the atelier Masqueray-Chambers, the first atelier (or studio) in the United States established to teach the practice of architecture along the French lines of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. It was established by Emmanuel Louis Masqueray, who is best remembered as the architect of the St. Louis Exposition and of the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Roberts found herself among an impressive roster of future architects who studied with Masqueray. Starting in 1899, Masqueray made a concerted effort to include women among his architectural students and even opened a second atelier especially for women students at 37-40 West 22nd Street in New York. As was said at the time, "...he has unbounded faith in women's ability to succeed in architecture...provided they go about it seriously."

As affirmed by architect Charles E. White, Jr. who worked for Wright alongside Isabel, Roberts produced original designs for the leaded art glass windows in the Prairie houses. Among the light-screens she is known to have designed are those in the Harry P. Sutton House in McCook, Nebraska. Isabel Roberts is remembered by her extended family, with whom I have corressponded and visited, as an architect.

While she was in Wright’s employ, Roberts and her mother commissioned a house from Wright's studio, which is today known today as the Isabel Roberts House, in the Chicago suburb of River Forest. The Isabel Roberts House was designed by Isabel Roberts, per her own AIA application statement, even though it has always been attributed to Wright, out of whose studio it emerged. The house was designed for Isabel and Mary Roberts to share, which they did for a decade before leaving Illinois. Also according to her own statement, while in Wright's employ, Roberts designed the K. C. DeRhodes House in South Bend, Indiana, for her South Bend friend, Laura Caskey Bowsher DeRhodes.

Isabel Roberts and her family, as well as the family of Prairie school architect William Eugene Drummond, were visitors to St. Cloud, Florida, as early as the winter of 1915. Roberts and her mother Mary moved to St. Cloud a decade after the Isabel Roberts House was completed. Mary Roberts was in failing health due to the lingering effects of influenza. Roberts’s sister Charlotte and her husband John B. Somerville were by that time established residents of St. Cloud. Mary Roberts died in Florida, in 1920.

Once in Florida, Isabel Roberts went into architectural practice with Ida Annah Ryan, who was the first woman in the United States to earn a masters degree in architecture, from MIT. As the firm of “Ryan and Roberts”, they were among no more than a dozen architecture firms active in Orlando in the 1920s. Their business is listed under the heading “Architects” as "Ryan and Roberts" in the 1926 and in the 1927 Orlando City Directories, at 240 S. Orange St. and theie Kenilworth Terrace Studio address. Soon after arriving in Florida, Roberts attempted to become a member of the Florida chapter of the American Institute of Architects. Letters of recommendation from John Van Bergen, Hermann V. von Holst and Frank Lloyd Wright which accompanied her application make it unmistakably clear that these men who had been her colleagues in Chicago considered Roberts to be an architect. Even so, Roberts was not admitted to the AIA. Nonetheless, throughout the 1920s, the architectural firm of Ryan and Roberts created landmark buildings in Central Florida, some of which still stand, today. Many are shown in this photo set.

You can read more about Isabel Roberts at:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabel_Roberts

Photos of Isabel Roberts' Florida work that appear in this collection, as well as my original research about Isabel Roberts, are included in the film described in this event, part of the 50th anniversary at the Guggenheim:

"In collaboration with The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation will present "The Architecture of Writing: Wright, Women, and Narrative" on June 10, 2009. Participants Carol Gilligan and Gwendolyn Wright with Sarah Williams Goldhagen as moderator, discuss how the architecture of writing shapes the narratives about women architects. To launch the discussion, the program premiers a BWAF-produced 15-minute film, “A Girl Is A Fellow Here”: 100 Women Architects in the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright, that explores an unknown legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright. At a time when few architectural firms would hire women, Frank Lloyd Wright unhesitatingly employed women, giving them both training and opportunity to practice. Ultimately, over 100 women architects and designers worked with Wright, many of them going on to remarkable careers of their own. One of the Taliesin Apprentices of 1947, Lois Gottlieb, will be honored at the beginning of the program."

For more about the film:
www.bwaf.org/support-film.html