Isabel Roberts - Orlando, Florida

Orlando, Florida

Isabel Roberts and her family, accompanied by members of the William Drummond family, 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 the Kenilworth Terrace address. One of only 10 architectural firms listed in 1926, the others including: Frank L. Bodine, Fred E. Field, David Hyer, Murry S. King, George E. Krug, Howard M. Reynolds, Frederick H. Trimble and Percy P. Turner. And one of 12 firms so listed in Orlando in 1927, which included Maurice E. Kressly.

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:

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• Veterans Memorial Library - 1012 Massachusetts Ave., St. Cloud, Florida. Isabel Roberts’ brother-in-law, John B. Somerville, served on the building committee, a connection which resulted in Ryan and Roberts obtaining this commission. In 1922, an outline of what was desired was laid before architects Miss Ida Annah Ryan and Miss Isabel Roberts of Orlando. The plans submitted by these ladies were subsequently accepted. The architects insisted on a motto. Carlyle's, "The true university is a collection of books," was chosen. The building, although described as of Grecian style is in fact reminiscent of the designs of many of the Prairie School small bank buildings of the upper Midwest by Louis Sullivan, William Gray Purcell and George Grant Elmslie, Frank Lloyd Wright and others. It is constructed of hollow tile with stained stucco exterior and is well cared for and in daily use today. It now houses the St. Cloud Heritage Museum. The building is currently owned by the City of St. Cloud; however, the museum is operated solely by volunteers of the Woman's Club of St. Cloud.

• Amherst Apartments - 325 West Colonial Drive, Orlando, Florida. The Amherst Apartments were, for many years, Orlando’s most prestigious apartment address. Designed by Ida A. Ryan and Isabel Roberts in the Prairie Style and built in 1921-1922, it featured forty-seven apartments situated on the south shore of Lake Concord. The building closely resembles the design for the German Embassy Building (1915) by William Eugene Drummond; Roberts worked for Gunzel and Drummond in 1915. The Amherst Apartments were demolished in 1986.

• Tourist Club House - 700 Indiana Ave., St. Cloud, Florida. This club house for the Tourist Club of St. Cloud was opened in the city park on December 3, 1923. Designed by Ida Annah Ryan and Isabel Roberts, it shows the influence of the Prairie School with which Roberts was associated, as a rectangular structure with a barrel-roofed auditorium. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park Studio developed this style with open, airy plans, low-pitched hip or gable roofs, horizontal brick walls, exposed rafter ends, broad overhanging eaves and grouped wood windows. The building was torn down circa 2005.

• The Ryan/Roberts Home and Studio – 834 Kenilworth Terrace, Orlando, Florida (private). Ryan and Roberts designed this Mediterranean Revival style home and adjoining studio for their own use in 1920-24. The stucco structure with gable roof is in a simplified Mediterranean revival style. The former studio faces the street. Details of the design include asymmetrical window placements, decorative attic vents, side yard orientation and gently scalloped corner buttresses. It is a very well maintained private residence today.

• The Chapel at the Fisk Funeral Home, 1107-1111 Massachusetts Avenue, St. Cloud. A Prairie meets Spanish Revival style building with pointed arch arcades and a second-floor string of grouped windows.

• The Pennsylvania Hotel Building, 10th Street between Pennsylvania Ave. and Florida Avenue, St. Cloud, Florida. The building now houses the St. Cloud Twin Theatres.

• The Peoples Bank Building, southeast corner of 10th Street and New York Avenue, St. Cloud, Florida. The bank failed in the late Twenties; the building is now used as a cafe and barber shop.

• The St. Cloud Presbyterian Church (demolished) was a Mediterranean Revival remodeling of the church building, designed by Ryan and Roberts in the early 1920s. Isabel Roberts was a member of this congregation. Photos of this stylish remodeling may be seen in the St. Cloud Heritage Museum.

• Ross E. Jeffries Elementary School, 1200 Vermont Avenue, St. Cloud, Florida, circa 1926; Though positive documentation has been lost to time, records show that the designers of the Mediterranean Revival style school's original building may have been Ryan & Roberts. The building is distinguished by an arched porch in the offset tower main entry and a low profile accentuated by a curved parapet roofed bay. The facade consists chiefly of large tri-part Chicago style windows, with small end windows as accents.

• Lester M. Austin, Sr. Residence, 541 North Boyd Street, Winter Garden, Florida, circa 1927. A large Mediterranean Revival stucco house with tile roof and triparte arched windows. The Austin Residence is well-maintained and remains in private hands.

• The Fraser Residence, Orlando, Florida (private). A spacious, elegant Mediterranean Revival stucco mansion situated on one of Orlando's secluded lakes, the Fraser Residence is well-maintained and remains in private hands. Ryan and Roberts' freedom with window shapes and placement is particularly evident in this house, as is their use of round-headed French doors and similar windows, without any 45 degree angle dividers and with the two half circle segments on each side. It was a popular device with the firm and might be thought of as one of their "trademarks". This home served as Orlando Opera Guild's 1988 Designers' Show House.

• Unity Chapel, Orlando (demolished). For many years, this charming building, in a stuccoed English vernacular style, was the worship home of First Unitarian Church of Orlando, near Lake Eola. Ida Annah Ryan was a member of this congregation. Some scholars have had a hard time identifying this building, which Roberts listed on her AIA application. It is not to be confused with Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois.

• Lake Eola Bandstand (built 1924, demolished) Cantilevered hip roof over lozenge shaped deck, with distinctive Prairie Style lamps on the entrance bridge stairs.

Additional residential and commercial structures by Ryan and Roberts continue to be identified as current owners become more aware of the significance of the contributions these women made to the field of architecture.

Isabel Roberts was a member of the St. Cloud Presbyterian Church (another of their commissions, a remodeling of an older structure, it is now demolished) until she moved from St. Cloud to Orlando in the early '20's, at which time she joined First Presbyterian Church of Orlando.

Isabel Roberts and Ida Annah Ryan lived and practiced at their Kenilworth home and studio in Orlando for the remainder of their lives. Isabel Roberts died in Orlando on December 27, 1955 at the age of 84, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Orlando, alongside her mother Mary Roberts and her sister Charlotte Roberts Somerville; none of their graves have markers.