Background
William C. Weston was born in 1866 in Dundee, New Zealand.
William C. Weston was born in 1866 in Dundee, New Zealand.
Mr. Weston arrived in the United States when he was nineteen years of age. With the ambition to become an architect, he began his training in the Chicago office of D. H. Burnham & Company, and after a consecutive period of employment in other offices, started his career in Birmingham, Ala.
In 1915 he closed his office in that city and moved to Detroit. Due, however, to unsettled business conditions prior to the start of World War I, he did little work. Resuming practice after the Armistice he carried on work until 1922 under the name of Weston & Smith, later formed a partnership with Mr. Ellington, and soon acquired a large and successful practice in Detroit. In their work Mr. Weston was responsible for all the architectural details while Mr. Ellington took charge of the Structural Engineering, an arrangement that proved most satisfactory.
Among the firm's most important commissions were the Metropolitan and Price Office Buildings; the Stroh Office Building, where the partners opened office headquarters; Nurses' Home and Chapel at the Fisher Home for the Aged; U. S. Marine Hospital; Sarah Fisher Home for Children; Providence Hospital; Building for the Bank of Detroit; Fourth Church of Christ Scientist; St. Peter’s Episcopal Church; Warder Hotel, and the Hotel Fort Wayne; Oakland Avenue Branch and the Mansfield Branch of the Highland State Bank, also several clubs, fraternity buildings, and industrial and manufacturing plants in Detroit and other cities.
Mr. Weston, following his brief period of practice in Birmingham, Ala., received a number of commissions to design buildings in the latter city, and under the firm name prepared plans for the Temple Einanual, the Jefferson County Savings Bank Building (twenty-seven stories in height), the First National Bank, and the Woodward Building.