Background
H. Harwood Hewitt was born in 1874 at Bloomington, Illinois, United States.
H. Harwood Hewitt was born in 1874 at Bloomington, Illinois, United States.
At the age of eighteen completed an early education at the University of Chicago. His architectural training was acquired at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a B. S. degree in 1899, and during five years spent in Europe in combined travel and study. He was awarded his diploma at the Paris Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1900.
In 1900 Mr. Hewitt returned to this country and began a career in Chicago as architect for the Western Electric Company, in charge of all its building operations west of the city. After working there for a year or longer he moved to Denver to open his own office, subsequently in 1906 joined Maurice Biscoe in partnership and during that association designed seven buildings for the George Clayton College. Later Mr. Hewitt supervised the erection of St. John’s Cathedral and the Church of the Wilderness in Denver for the New York firm of Tracy & Swartwout.
In Los Angeles where he established an office in 1913 his best known works were schools, including the Owensmouth (now Canoga Park) and a Parochial School in Los Angeles on La Brea Avenue, near Pico Street. In addition he designed a number of fine residences, a notable example of which was the Hanson house in Flintridge. Shortly before his decease Mr. Hewitt completed sketches for what would have been his most important project, a new building for the Los Angeles Ebell Club, completed after his death by the firm of Hunt & Burns.