Muir was born in 1906, in San Francisco, California. Her father was Joseph Muir, a throat surgeon and diplomat. And her mother Ethel Fitch Muir was an operatic soprano, the granddaughter of politician Thomas Fitch.
Her unusual first name is from her father"s earlier wife, Edla Coleman McPherson, who died in 1901.
She graduated from Inglewood High School in 1923, and then began working full-time in Byers" office.
Edla Muir’s parents divorced in 1916. As a schoolgirl, she worked weekends and summers for a Santa Monica-based architect, John Byers. Muir focused on designing modern private homes, especially for clients in Malibu, Pacific Palisades, and other affluent Southern California communities.
Among her celebrity clients were Shirley Temple, Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck.
She earned her architecture license in 1934, and continued at the Byers office until 1942. After World World War II she opened her own office, and was an independent architect until the end of her life.
Her designs were featured in Sunset magazine, Architectural Digest, and other publications, as representative of the modern California home. She also designed some public and commercial buildings, such as a supermarket and the City Hall in Ellensburg, Washington, and a corporate office in Mexico City.
She also designed her own family"s residence, a dramatic structure on the side of a cliff at Mandeville Canyon.
Edla Muir married Clyde Lambie, and had one son, Alec. She died in November 1971, age 65. In 1982 the Organization of Women Architects honored Edla Muir and Lutah Maria Riggs as pioneering women in architecture, in a publication to mark the group"s tenth anniversary.
She was also one of the women architects highlighted in a 1989 exhibit at the Pacific Design Center.
Muir"s papers are in the Architecture and Design Collection at University Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara.
