Background
Leon Kaufman Frankel was born in 1878 at Louisville, Kentucky, United States.
Leon Kaufman Frankel was born in 1878 at Louisville, Kentucky, United States.
He received a public school education, later studied Mechanical Engineering at the State University. Awarded his Masters degree in 1902.
Mr. Frankel served as Instructor at the College of Engineering for two years, and in a later period, 1906 to 1919 held the chair of Professor of Design. Resigning from the faculty in the latter year to begin practice, he established the firm of Frankel & Curtis in Lexinqton and continued as its active head until the time of his death thirty years later. After 1935 his son, James S. Frankel was a third partner in the firm.
During a long and successful career Mr. Frankel was identified with the design and erection of numerous public and private buildings in his native state, including churches, hospitals, schools and colleges, theatres, hotels, commercial buildings and private residences. Among his most important works were the following: Church of the Good Shepherd; Temple Adath Israel, 1924; City Hall, Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School, 1923; Morton Junior High, ten buildings at the Julius Marks Sanitarium, 1925 to 1940; Convalescent Home for the Kentucky Society for Crippled Children, 1948-49; Public Health Center 1935; Fayette County Jail, 1930. In addition Mr. Frankel designed the following buildings on the campus of the University of Kentucky; original Mechanics Hall, 1904; Agriculture Experiment Station, 1911; Chemistry Building and Laboratories, 1912; Agricultural Engineering Building, 1930; tobacco Research Laboratory, 1936; Animal Pathology Laboratory, 1937, and later additions up to 1947.
Independently or under the firm name he was architect of various buildings erected in different cities, including the Frankfort High School, 1924; High Schoo at Georgetown, Ky.. 1925; Hospital at the State School for the Deaf, Danville, 1927; Hospital for the State School for the Feeble Minded at Frankfort; County Jail and Civic Center at Paris, Ky., 1939; Gilcher Hotel at Danville, and restoration of the old State Capitol at Frankfort in 1930.
Mr. Frankel was also frequently associated with the other architects on specific projects, such as the Second Presbyterian Church at Lexington, 1924, (with Cram & Ferguson of Boston); Shriners' Hospital for Crippled Children, Lexington, Ky. (Hentz, Reid & Adler of Atlanta, Architects); Kentucky State Prison at LaGrange, 1935 and State Hospital in Boyle County, 1936; Darnell Hospital for the U. S. Army, 1941; Low-cost Housing Projects at Lexington, Covington and Frankfort; eight buildings at the Western State Hospital, Hopkinsville. Ky., 1942-45 (associated with Herman Wischmeyer and E. R. Ronald of Louisville and J. T. Gillig of Lexington); Nurses Home and Ward at Central State Hospital, Lakeland, Ky., 1943-45, and Detention Building for Boys at the Kentucky Houses of Reform at Greendale, 1943.
Well-known in professional circles he had been a member of the Kentucky Chapter of the A. I. A. from 1926 until the time of his death. A member of the Executive Committee of the Alumni Association of the University of Kentucky for thirty- two years, Mr. Frankel was also prominent in both civic and social organizations.