Career
The Snyder-designed Berkeley Community Young Women’s Christian Association, built in 1930, is on the city"s historical register. The Roy O. Long Company Building, built in 1927, is on the California Historical Resources Inventory. Along with Frederick L. Confer (designer of the Tao House), Snyder designed several “western colonial” homes during the depression.
Snyder designed the 7,700-square-foot (720 m2) Alpha Delta Pi sorority house in Berkeley, excluding architect’s fees, the English cottage style structure was made for $27,500.
Snyder was strongly influenced by a six-week visit to Majorca, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean, where he visited Palma (Majorca), Deià, Estellencs, and Formentor. He found homes he described as “architecturally perfect” featuring pergolas, Dado (architecture), tile roofs, windows that ran to the floor, with white-washed finishes.
These features were included in his later California works. Snyder’s designs placed first and second in the 1932 Small House Exhibition in Oakland, California. The first place award was for a ranch house built for his colleague Confer.
lieutenant featured typical traits of early California architecture—a clay tile roof, a large brick fireplace, and a sunroom.
An advocate of housing for low-income families, Snyder designed low-cost homes for the National Housing Bureau. He emphasized that low-income housing should have standard design elements, but different architectural design. A veteran of both World War I and II, Snyder operated his own architecture practice in Carmel, California, from 1942 to 1961, when he moved to Lodi, California to retire.
He was a former member and past president of the Architectural Honor Society.
Snyder was born in Stockton, California and received his degree in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley in 1909.