Riverside
County
Biographies
GEORGE STANLEY WILSON
Riverside is noted for its beautiful
buildings, a distinction largely achieved through the creative efforts of G.
Stanley Wilson, an architect of high professional attainments. Born in Bournemouth, England, in 1879, he
attended the schools of that town until he reached the age of sixteen, when he
came to America with his father, mother, three brothers and three sisters, who
established their home at Riverside in September, 1895, and here he has since
resided.
In 1909 Mr. Wilson began his career
as an architect, securing a desirable location at 646 Ninth Street, Riverside,
where he remained until the summer of 1931, when he transferred his offices to
the International Rotunda of the Mission Inn.
This new addition to the world-famous inn, which he designed for it
proprietor, Frank Miller, constitutes one of his outstanding achievements as an
architect. In the creation of the
structure he has produced a picturesque profusion of arches, towers, balconies
and flying buttresses that blend harmoniously with the rest of the
hostelry. In it he has visioned the
romantic Spanish colonial traditions of California.
The September, 1931, issue of
“California Arts & Architecture” contained an interesting article on the
“California Mission Inn,” from which we quote the following: “The ‘International Rotunda’ and its
accompanying addition to the Inn can be entered from the hotel or from the
street, as many of its rooms are used for offices. Seated on a bench beside the goose boy
fountain, one looks upward from the basement to the sky. The encircling stairway fascinates, the
vision is intrigued with plaque and bas relief, the mind is full of startled
thoughts as the details of structure and the mystery of concrete at its best is
slowly grasped. A triumph for the
architect, this hollow tower, confesses the rank outsider and the amateur; what
joy to play with plastic rock and make it stand secure.
“All through the building one finds
this playfulness which is the artist’s final show of mastery and the owner’s
daring character personified. Truly our
modern flair for mottoes is here justified.
‘Beauty pays’ and with the honest man also, ‘Religion is profitable’
when its philosophy encompasses the world.
Such is the religion of Frank Miller expressed in the building of his
Mission Inn; and such is the basic ideal of its varied architecture. As Mr. DeWitt Hutchings has said, “this
rotunda eclipses in interest any of the special architectural and historical
features previously built there.’
“This is true because the
international impulse toward good-will is embodied in every feature of the 1931
building. Mr. Wilson, the architect, was
given the space to fill, the great golden altar from a private chapel in Mexico
and the stained glass windows and mosaics to incorporate as motifs, the ideas
of good-will toward Mexico, Japan and the Orient beyond to express, a great
project, extraordinarily fulfilled.
“The ‘International Rotunda’
addition to Mission Inn exemplifies the above philosophy, while at the same
time it is exceptionally interesting architecturally as a whole as well as in
the bewildering variety of its ornamentation in detail. The new building takes its name from the
cylindrical court, thirty-three feet across and six stories high, encircled by
its unusual recessed and overhanging stairway.
As one enters the Rotunda from the street one feels transplanted to
Medieval Europe. Here are rows of
columns of varying sizes on the different levels. Some of the pediments are Ionic, with
Renaissance elements added; some are Doric.
The series of arches vary, some being pointed, others circular, others
flat; the stairway breaks the intervals regularly. The delicate tracery of the hand-wrought
railings offers another contrast with its bell motif and the names of Mission
and Spanish explorers interwoven. Set
into the walls are tile coats of arms of different countries, carrying out the
international scheme. In niches are
statues of patron saints of nations: St.
George of England, St. James of Spain. On the lowest level a blithe Bavarian Gooseman fountain faces a figure of Joan of Arc. The Rotunda is uncovered, so overhead are the
impartial stars and the friendly sky.
“Although the Rotunda gives its name
to the whole new addition, there are also three other new courts equally as
interesting and as important as the Rotunda, and each of these is a center from
which radiates new feature divisions of the hotel. The Rotunda itself, since it is primarily an
office building, is entered from the street.
Two of the other courts, ‘The Court of the Orient’ and the ‘Atrio of St.
Francis,’ are within the hotel proper and are entered from the second floor of
the inner Spanish Dining Patio by means of the arcaded corridor on the opposite
side from the Garden of the Bells. The
third new court, the ‘Garden of the Stars,’ is on the sixth floor and is
reached either through the Rotunda or from the Spanish wing, since it has a
two-fold function; its therapeutic and sun-baths and its club rooms beneath the
beautiful tile-covered ‘Amistad’ Dome (Dome of Friendship) will be used equally
by the people of the community and the guests of the Inn; it’s lovely suites
surrounding the Starlight Pool and commanding unobstructed views of the
mountains, will be sought after by discriminating guests of the Inn.
“The ‘Court of the Orient’ continues
the Oriental theme of the present Oriental rooms out into the open and forms
the approach to new Oriental rooms beyond.
There are terraces, broad steps, stone railings, lanterns, shrines,
fountains, bronzes, shrubs, bells and a rock water-course as in a Japanese
garden. The supports of overhanging
stories are like those of a temple.
Opening from the Court of the Orient on all sides are rooms of the
Oriental section of the Inn’s famous Cloister Art Shop. A colossal carved and lacquered temple Buddha
presides serenely, seeming to offer peaceful greeting at this cross-roads of
the East and West.
“Architecturally the Atrio of St.
Francis will be considered the piece de resistance of Mission Inn. It might be the plaza of a small city of
Mexico or Spain. The floor is of
marble. An ancient tile shrine of the
style of Della Robbia in soft colors enriches one
wall. A noted statue, ‘St. Francis and the
Wolf of Gubbio,’ by Ruth Sherwood, is in a niche
beyond. A bronze fountain is in the
center. The St. Joseph Arcade with
twisted columns, once belonging to Stanford White, skirts one side, forming a
covered passage from the Spanish Art Gallery to the St. Francis Chapel. Above, corridors and columns, arches and
balconies with hand-wrought railings grace the upper levels where the Spanish
wing ends and where it connects with the new Rotunda addition. The Atrio forms the entrance court for the
two most important rooms of the new construction, the St. Francis Chapel and
the Galeria, or new Art Gallery. The latter is a room one hundred sixteen feet
long by twenty-five feet wide and thirty feet high, with decorated beamed
ceilings, its windows all on the north side, its walls for paintings; the room
to be used for banquets and dances. The facade
of the Chapel of St. Francis is the chief architectural feature of the
Atrio. Facing it from the entrance, one
feels as if standing in front of a cathedral in a quiet plaza of Old
Mexico. The Churrigueresque rich
ornamentations, the rose windows, the coats of arms, the figures of saints in
their niches—all are beautiful and all seem as if they must be of some bygone
age. The proportions of facade and
doorway and rose window are splendid. Huge sixteen-foot mahogany doors give
entrance. The interior, dimly lighted,
reveals its richness slowly to one entering from the brilliant sunlight of the
Atrio. At the far end is the famous gold
altar from Mexico which was formerly in the Spanish Art Gallery. Its surface and columns and figures have lost
none of the lustre which they had two hundred years
ago when the altar was made for the chapel of Marquis de Rayas
at Guanajuato. Carved oak stalls of
Renaissance design with medallions from an ancient monastery in Belgium occupy
the sides of the chapel from the entrance to the chancel and above them,
glowing and sparkling in all their color, are the Tiffany windows and mosaics,
three on each side. These were made by
Louis Tiffany from designs by Stanford White and for many years were in Dr. Parkhurst’s Church, Madison Square, New York. After the church was demolished to make way
for the Metropolitan Life Building, Mr. Miller secured the windows through Mr.
Tiffany.”
Mr. Wilson designed, built and owns
the beautiful La Casa de Anza Hotel and Apartments on Market at Fourth Street,
near the center of the city. This
picturesque, ornate structure was named for Captain Don Juan Bautista de Anza,
the first white man to enter California.
Leaving Tubac, Mexico, in January, 1774, he
passed through the Santa Ana river valley, where Riverside is now located, and
arrived in San Gabriel, May 22. He
founded the Presidio at Monterey; explored the San Francisco Bay region, and
selected the site for the Mission Delores.
He was one of the most romantic figures in the early history of
California. Among the numerous school
buildings designed by Mr. Wilson are the Magnolia Avenue School, the Lowell and
Liberty schools, and the Hemet and Corona high schools. He drew the plans for the Loring
Opera House, the Hellman Bank, the Crossley Garage
and other large and imposing buildings in Riverside, and among the residences
which he designed are those of Judge Densmore, C. O.
Evans, S. C. Evans, and Allan Pinkerton of New York.
In 1906 Mr. Wilson was married to
Miss Mildred Scott, a daughter of Dr. D. H. Scott of Riverside, and three
children were born to them: Maybl, Harry and Ernest.
Mr. Wilson belongs to the Kiwanis Club, the Sons of St. George, the
Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Independent Order of Odd
Fellows. In recognition of his
endowments and achievements his professional colleagues have honored him with
the vice presidency of the California Association of Architects, which office
he is now filling, and is also a member of the American Institute of
Architects.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 499-504, Clarke Publ.,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
GOLDEN
NUGGET'S RIVERSIDE BIOGRAPHIES