James Gamble Rogers II was a celebrated American architect practicing primarily in Winter Park, Florida in the middle years of the twentieth century.
Background
Rogers was born on January 24, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois, to John Arthur Rogers and Elizabeth Baird Rogers. His father, as well as his paternal uncle and namesake James Gamble Rogers were both architects. Rogers grew up in Winnetka until his family relocated to Florida when he was in high school.
Thereafter, he attended Dartmouth College but returned to Daytona Beach and began work in his father"s architecture practice before he could graduate, in 1924.
Career
He is noted for suavely elegant residential and commercial work, in the Spanish Revival, Mediterranean Revival, French Provincial, and Colonial Revival styles. His occasional forays into the Art Deco and International Style also garnered outstanding contributions to the built environment. Between 1924 and 1934, Rogers designed many buildings but because he was not yet a registered architect, during that decade the drawings were signed by his father and by other architects.
In 1928 he opened a branch of his father"s practice in Winter Park.
Following his father"s death in 1934, Rogers managed the Orlando office of architect David Hyer. When Hyer returned to Charleston, South Carolina in 1935, Rogers opened his own practice in Winter Park, having successfully passed the Florida Board of Architecture examinations that year.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Rogers designed many outstanding commissions, chiefly residential, which were and remain among the most sought after homes in Winter Park and environs. Perhaps his best known of these is the Barbour Residence, also known as "Casa Feliz".
The house was built on a site overlooking Lake Osceola in 1932.
To save the home from destruction, in 2000 it was moved to its present location and is available for tours and for special event rentals. The home, designed to resemble a Spanish farmhouse, displays many of Roger"s aesthetic gifts. Rogers continued to practice architecture until he was in his eighties.
Among his later commissions of note is the Greek Revival Florida Supreme Court Building in Tallahassee, of 1948.
Rogers died on October 30, 1990 at the home he designed on Temple Grove Avenue, Winter Park. "Four Winds", Rogers House I, Isle of Sicily, Winter Park, Florida
- 1929
Shippen House, 1290 North Park Avenue, Winter Park, Florida - 1931
Robert Bruce Barbour House, "Casa Feliz", Interlachen Avenue, Winter Park, Florida
- 1932 (relocated 2000 to 656 Park Avenue North)
McAllaster House, 160 Alexander Place, Winter Park, Florida
- 1934
Holt House, 1430 Elizabeth Drive, Winter Park, Florida - 1937
Jewet House, North Park Avenue, Winter Park, Florida - 1937
Barbour Apartments, 520-540 North. Knowles Avenue, Winter Park, Florida
- 1937
Greeneda Court, Park Avenue, Winter Park, Florida
- 1945-1947
Mills Library, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida - 1948
Florida Supreme Court Building, 500 South. Duval Saint, Tallahassee, Florida
- 1958
Olin Library, 1000 Holt Avenue, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida - 1986
1020 Palmer Avenue
Winter Park, Florida Rogers" largest residential design
711 Alba Drive Orlando, Florida
160 Glenridge, Winter Park, Florida 1329 South Highland Park Drive, Lake Wales, Florida - 1957
490 East Webster Avenue, Winter Park, Florida
McEwan Residence: 407 Peachtree Road, Orlando, Florida, - 1939.