A Race to Splendor

by Ciji Ware

  Startled by this involuntary reaction, she swiftly retreated to hang her coat on a peg in a small anteroom at the back of the remodeled barn.

  What is wrong with you, Amelia Bradshaw? You are behaving like the biggest ninny in the American West! Just stop it!

  She could easily guess the reasons for J.D.’s call on her employer, and that knowledge filled her with dread. The Julia Morgan firm might be asked this very morning to take on the task of rebuilding the Bay View Hotel property.

  Which actually might be her hotel property.

  Amelia was frankly surprised to see Thayer at the Morgan firm. Given her own recent legal battle with him and her pointed conversation about the playing cards she’d found in her father’s hand, she would have supposed he’d have avoided the possibility of rubbing shoulders with her at all costs and selected another firm to rebuild the hotel.

  He said he didn’t see what was in Father’s hand, and the other two cards were lost, so he’s confident the Bay View is his…

  And besides, she thought with the knowledge of how difficult it was for women to succeed in business, the services of qualified architects in San Francisco had quickly been snapped up, so perhaps Thayer’s last hope to reconstruct a hotel on Taylor and Jackson streets was to employ the firm in less demand than the usual male design practitioners—and therefore less expensive.

  Julia pointed to a solitary drafting station devoid of the large sheets of vellum upon which Morgan’s employees made drawings to their leader’s precise specifications.

  “Yes, Amelia, we’ve reserved that empty desk for you. I’ll be with you in a minute after I conclude my meeting with Mr. Thayer.”

  Reserved for you…

  Amelia’s spirits rose a notch at the intimation that Julia had already determined she’d require the services of her junior architect.

  Miss Morgan addressed her administrative assistant. “Lacy, show her my new set of sketches for the Mills College library. Amelia, see if you remember those ideas for shelving that you incorporated before the Montgomery Street office was ruined.”

  The mere mention of the library drawings and the harrowing experience that had followed her all-night efforts April 18 had a sudden, peculiar effect. Amelia’s heart began to pound and her palms grew clammy.

  She felt J.D.’s scrutiny. “Are you quite all right, Miss Bradshaw? You’ve gone quite pale.”

  She waved her hand in a small gesture. “Yes. Yes of course. I’m fine.” To Julia she said, “Right away, Miss M. I’ll do my best to recall the drawings that were lost,” remembering at the last second to address Julia by her surname.

  Thanks to the earthquake, it would seem she was to be hired full-time without debate—and during regular business hours, thank heavens.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Lacy whispered as their employer and Thayer resumed their conference at a dining table commandeered from the Morgan family home next door. “Your forehead’s perspiring and you look white as a sheet. Here, I’ll get you some water.”

  “Thank you.”

  Intermittent aftershocks had continued to rattle the Bay Area, and Julia’s casual reference to the disaster brought the horrifying experience rushing back as if it were yesterday. Amelia clutched her glass of water and tried to speak in a normal tone of voice. “Lacy, do you think you can find me some proper drawing pencils? I haven’t a single one.”

  “I know. We’ve had to purchase an unholy amount of new supplies—not to mention a new typewriting machine for me that cost a fortune.” Lacy lowered her voice to a whisper so as not to disturb the others. “The firm needs every commission it can get, even if it’s to build a doghouse. We’ve got to pay for the expenses of starting over. But you know Julia. She’s very picky about some things and a perfectionist about everything.” She brandished a fistful of drawing implements. “I sent to Chicago for these beauties.”

  During the next few minutes, Amelia did her best to concentrate on her work while studiously ignoring the conversation in the corner of the carriage barn—but their lively discussion made it impossible.

  “I’ve had a look at that bell tower you built at Mills College, Miss Morgan,” J.D. Thayer was saying, “and I don’t mind telling you, I was impressed.”

  “That it’s still standing?” Amelia could tell from Julia’s tone that her amusement was mixed with irritation.

  “That and its grand design. I was thinking that a new, strong interior structure employing some of the techniques you used in that tower, along with a handsome exterior like the hotel had before, would be just the thing. That’s why I’ve come to see you.”

  “It’s been a month now, since the quake,” Morgan noted. “Surely, you’ve discussed your ideas with other architects based closer to Taylor and Jackson streets?”

  “Yes, I have, but that was before I saw your bell tower.”

  “How kind of you to say so.” Julia Morgan smiled with genuine warmth. “And you hadn’t realized, I suspect, that the services of the other architects were already spoken for?”

  Amelia marveled that staid Julia almost appeared to be teasing her visitor.

  Thayer paused and then said, “I couldn’t seek an architect’s services until I had some idea whether the insurance would pay, and yes… by the time I could consult with these fellows here in Oakland, most San Francisco builders had many more commissions than they can handle.”

  Amelia could see that Thayer was a skilled diplomat as well as a flatterer. Much as she hated to admit it, those were precisely the attributes her grandfather had always called upon in his role as a successful hotelier.

  Meanwhile, the visitor pointed to a sheaf of drawings Julia had made for another client. “The owners of the Fairmont, as you probably know, felt they had to go as far as New York City to find someone qualified to get the rebuilding under way,” said J.D. “I just heard they hired the famous Stanford White, of McKim, Mead, & White, to restore my competition.”

  “So it seems.” Julia’s lips had settled into a prim line. Amelia knew that Julia had vied for that commission—and lost. “And will your insurance carrier make good on the policy?”

  Thayer frowned. “I still don’t know yet. Nevertheless, I’ve decided I mustn’t wait to proceed. I want to propose a plan whereby I pay you a small retainer, starting today. Then, at some later date to be determined, I would discharge the remainder of what I will owe with the fees I will get from paying guests as soon as we reopen our doors.”

  “Ah… yes… that sort of scheme has been offered this office several times in the last few weeks.” Julia looked narrowly at J.D. “Were you also thinking of having me order the building materials and supervise the construction, as I did the bell tower at Mills College?”

  J.D. paused, and Amelia could practically read the questions in his mind: could a mere woman acquire the lumber, bricks, mortar, and cement needed for such a huge undertaking? Could this slip of a female order crews around and make them come in on budget and on time?

  From the corner of her eye she also observed he’d come to the conclusion that she could.

  “Miss Morgan, it’s no secret. Every businessman—whether rich or merely prosperous before April eighteenth—has very little capital to work with at this time. The point is to get private enterprises going again, and I can’t do that sitting on an empty lot.”

  “I expect not, just as I cannot operate this office without paying my people and purchasing the supplies needed to rebuild your hotel.”

  “I certainly understand that you have serious expenses and cash flow issues of your own,” J.D. replied in a conciliatory tone. “But I would very much like you to both design the building and supervise its construction. I have applied to the Committee of Fifty and have every expectation they will see it is vastly in the city’s interest to get the Bay View Hotel up and running again. Are you willing to proceed on the promise of my word that I will somehow secure the funds you require?”

  Julia Morgan heaved a small sigh. “These a
re trying times indeed, Mr. Thayer, and it will be an important symbol to the world that San Francisco is rebuilding its most important buildings. I accept your offer, especially since you wish to recreate the hotel’s exterior design as it was before, and we can work from photographs that surely exist in the Oakland newspaper files. Plus Amelia, here, knew every inch of her family home, didn’t you, my dear?”

  Amelia set down her pencil because her hand had begun to tremble. It certainly appeared that Julia and her staff—including Amelia—would be constructing a hotel that might actually belong to the Morgan firm’s newest employee! Yet here was a chance to be part of the effort to recreate a building more precious to Amelia than all the magnificent edifices she’d studied in France. It was a tribute to her grandfather that Thayer wanted the exterior of the new building reconstructed to look exactly as it had before the quake and fire.

  For a split second, she utterly ignored the fact that the project was J.D. Thayer’s. All Amelia could think was that at long last, she was going to be able to satisfy her yearning to help build something real, a new and improved Bay View Hotel that, until this minute, resided only in her imagination.

  “As Miss Bradshaw has just returned to work following her father’s passing, I have not yet assigned her a new project.” Morgan hesitated. “It’s a bit awkward, I know, that Amelia will be working to rebuild a hotel that her grandfather created and ran for so many years, but her knowledge will be invaluable to us. Are you willing to have her part of my team?”

  J.D. turned slowly and regarded Amelia sitting frozen on her drafting stool.

  “Part of the team?” he said with a laconic smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

  Did he actually wink?

  “Well, why not?” he said at length. “There are many strange aspects to this grand disaster, aren’t there, Miss Bradshaw? The sooner we get the Bay View rebuilt, the better, so I’d welcome your contributions to this effort… that is, if you are willing to be part of my team.”

  Was she willing? Was that toad, Ezra Kemp, part of J.D.’s efforts? And what about rebuilding the gambling club? She certainly wanted no part of that project!

  However, experience told her she had little to fear about having to work regularly with Thayer and his cronies. Her employer would no doubt keep her junior, untried architect on a short leash, demanding Amelia prove herself designing tool sheds and library shelving before being given the responsibility as a full colleague.

  In a quiet corner of her mind, Amelia was grateful that J.D.’s building project—however much or little she had to do with it—had proved to be the guarantee that she’d have employment with the Morgan firm.

  She would never admit this to a living soul, but the man was one of those infuriating creatures in the mold of Etienne Lamballe whose very presence could make her pulse quicken and color streak her cheeks. She was mortified to acknowledge this fact, but there was no denying it—even to herself. All the more reason to be thankful that she was more than likely to be designing garages, not grand hotels.

  But before she could summon a suitable response to Thayer’s question about being willing to be part of his building efforts, Julia Morgan intervened briskly.

  “Excellent then! It’s settled. I will commence the preliminary sketches of the Bay View based on Amelia’s familiarity with the site. Come, my dear, and tell Mr. Thayer about your winning a Prix d’Or in Paris.”

  Chapter 11

  J.D. sped on foot toward the docks, hoping he’d arrive in time to catch the next ferry back to San Francisco. Repeatedly en route, his mind ran through the scene he’d just witnessed at Julia Morgan’s office in her family’s converted carriage barn. It served him right if the only qualified and available architects in all of the Bay Area included the woman whose inebriated father had been persuaded to hazard the family’s hotel in a series of reckless games of chance at the instigation of James Diaz Thayer.

  And why? So that the cast-off son and black sheep of the exalted Thayer clan could acquire a prime piece of real estate that would finally garner its new owner—what? Respect from his father?

  Highly unlikely.

  What had possessed him to take advantage of Amelia’s grandfather, the admirable Charlie Hunter, who had lain upstairs at the old Bay View, dying of a stroke?

  The sheer desire to beat James Thayer Sr., at his own game.

  Usually, J.D. didn’t make it a practice to dig too deeply into the motives that launched him into business deals with the likes of Henry Bradshaw and Ezra Kemp. It was also probably wise not to dwell on the reasons he was strangely glad Miss Morgan’s talented protégée would be part of the team rebuilding the hotel, or why he’d felt he had to possess the property atop Nob Hill in the first place.

  Amelia Hunter Bradshaw would probably be astounded to know how much he looked forward to hearing her informed opinion about what should be done with the land at Taylor and Jackson streets. Or how he privately acknowledged that he certainly owed her a great deal more than merely “allowing” this feisty female to join the group that would be rebuilding the Bay View.

  After all, she did save your pathetic neck a month ago.

  And now, a lifetime later, all he owned was a pile of rubble, plus a mountain of debts, a dodgy business partner, and certain knowledge of the havoc he’d wrecked in the life of the fledgling architect, her aged aunt, and Amelia’s mother.

  And let us not forget that Ling Lee and Amelia’s father died due to the poorly constructed gambling club… and whose fault was that? The chiseler, Ezra Kemp? Or the man that looked the other way while corners were cut?

  There was enough on his conscience without taking on the total burden for that too, he reflected. Even so, there was no question in J.D.’s mind but that he had plenty of sins to account for.

  The arriving ferry he would take back to San Francisco was just nudging its hull against the Oakland dock’s pilings when J.D. realized that The Mood had descended upon him once again in full force. While he watched the travelers from across the bay trudge down the gangway, he fought a familiar mental battle to stiffen his resolve not to allow his gloom to become a paralyzing force in his life.

  The Mood could easily persuade him to throw in his cards and abandon his dream. But that way led to folly and doom. He had to do something about this city and his own life, both of which could be said to lie in ruins. He had to take action of some sort. If he merely went back to the black pit on Nob Hill where the hotel had been and crawled onto the makeshift mattress in the shattered basement, he might never crawl out.

  By the time J.D. emerged on the ferry’s deck, the wind was gusting fiercely and white caps stippled the bay. The ship’s horn blew, the engines vibrated beneath his feet, and the ferry backed away from the dock. The Berkeley turned in a froth of water and made for San Francisco.

  Suddenly, J.D. wished he could simply sail off on this boat through Golden Gate Straits to the far South Pacific—and never come back.

  ***

  Two weeks after Amelia’s encounter with Thayer at the Morgan office, she set off for work as June sunshine struggled to poke through a high morning mist. At a corner newsstand, a headline caught her eye:

  ARCHITECT STANFORD WHITE SHOT BY LOVER’S HUSBAND!!!

  Murdered at New York City’s Roof Garden Theatre

  By Enraged Henry Thaw

  San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel In Search Of

  A Successor To Rebuild Landmark

  “Good heavens,” she murmured, swiftly scanning the first paragraph reporting on the homicide involving the famous partner of McKim, Mead & White, the New York architectural firm celebrated for mansions, monuments, public buildings, and churches across the nation. White, a notorious profligate and womanizer, had apparently been shot point blank by the cuckolded Harry K. Thaw the previous evening.

  “No wonder the husband plugged ’im,” noted the newsboy. “That Stanford White fella was even two-timin’ his mistress! Wanna paper, miss?” he asked pointedly.
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  “Ah… yes, thank you.” Amelia swiftly handed him a few coins and set off for work again. She hadn’t even hung up her coat before Lacy Fiske grabbed her sleeve.

  “She’s been chosen!” Lacy exalted. “Can you imagine? Julia’s going to replace that awful man who got shot.”

  “She’s joining McKim, Mead, & White?” Amelia was aghast at the notion the office might shut down if Julia moved to New York City.

  “No, silly!” Lacy replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. “The owners of the Fairmont have sent for Julia this morning.”

  “The Law brothers want her to restore the hotel?”

  To Amelia’s way of thinking, the beaux-arts design of the Fairmont, sitting like a marble crown on Nob Hill, was leagues ahead of the Palace, the St. Francis, and—though it pained her to admit it—even the Bay View. Its restoration would truly be a symbol San Francisco would rise from the ashes.

  Lacy kept nodding emphatically. “Yes, the Law brothers sent an emissary to escort her to San Francisco for the meeting this morning! I heard them say that she’d beaten out the competition by promising to finish the job by the first anniversary of the quake.”

  “You must be joking!” Amelia did a rapid calculation. That was only ten months from now! “Does she really think it can be done?”

  “It must be,” Lacy pronounced.

  “But what about the Bay View and Mills College and all the other projects we’re doing? We’re over-committed as it is. Didn’t Julia say just yesterday that we’re too swamped with work for her to take on any more big commissions?”

  “Oh, for heaven sakes, Amelia, this is the Fairmont Hotel we’re talking about! Though she says it’s in the most deplorable condition.”

  “How deplorable?” Amelia asked with a worried frown, for she’d studiously avoided passing by Nob Hill since the quake and had not been to San Francisco since returning to Oakland to resume living with her aunt.