MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1970 Autobiography "This and That"

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 05: Administration – Board of Trustees
Series 09: Biography – Staff/Personnel
Series 10: Built Environment
PMSS MASTER ARCHITECT

Mary Rockwell Hook. Portrait

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK Autobiography “This and That”

Mary Rockwell Hook (1877 – 1978)
School Architect and Consultant 1913 through – c. 1968
Member, PMSS Board of Trustees

TAGS: Mary Rockwell Hook; Wellesley College; women architects. ; Katherine Pettit; Ethel de Long Zande; Marguerite Butler Bidstrup; Angela Melville; Luigi Zande; Art Institute of Chicago; Ecole des Beaux-Arts; Jean-Marcel Arbutin; gender bias; American Institute of Architects; Kansas City, MO; Howe, Holt, and Cutler ; Old Log ; Big Log ; Laurel House ; PMSS Board of Trustees ; Inghram D. Hook ; National Register of Historic Places ; Kansas City Landmarks Commission ; Leon Deschamps; Hook and Remington ; Eric Douglas MacWilliam Remington ; ‘Mac’ Remington; International Archive of Women in Architecture ; Susan Huntington; Ann Huntington; Burton Roger ; Glyn Morris; Gladys Morris;

Mary Rockwell Hook wrote her autobiography, “This and That” in 1970 in the tenth decade of her life. Born September 8, 1877, she died on her birthday, September 8, 1977. Mary Rockwell Hook rarely did anything without planning, but remarkably, even her death seemed fit into some larger cosmic plan. Planning was built into her psyche, if not into her destiny. Even at the age of 101 and quite blind, she was still planning and building in her very imaginative brain.

In the final pages of her autobiography, Mary Rockwell Hook conjured up imaginative designs. In her mind’s eye, she designed a new capital for France and redesigned the Washington White House, [Eat your heart out, TRUMP!] adding a new two-story wing that surrounded an Italian garden where the President could entertain, surrounded by nature. In this vision, she described her future construction as a “whole new White House done in white marble and glass,” growing from its natural setting. She imagined the old White House retired for the people as a “historic “National Treasure.” Basically, she turned the White House inside out, placing the emphasis on the view in as well as a refreshing view out — where the governed and the government would mingle on a human scale.

In many ways, these imaginative designs were Mary’s contributions to a “shining city on the hill” where nurture and nature could come together. She always imagined her houses with gardens and places where the dweller could live a life in harmony with the natural outside world. One of her last visions was a new contemporary town in western Kansas, where she was born. She imagined that it would share “a park complete with prairie dogs and tumbleweed. In the town of her birth, Junction City, Kansas, she “designed” another park which she imagined to be filled “with sunflowers and various wildflowers.” Many of her homes were surrounded by marvelous gardens and the Florida Siesta Key home was her “White House” where she loved to entertain her friends and guests.

It is little wonder that Mary Rockwell Hook continued to come to Pine Mountain as long as her frail body could manage it. There, in the deep mountains of Kentucky, her Open House was surrounded by the most natural of gardens. The mossy slopes, and boulders topped with trillium, and ferns, rhododendron, and laurel mixed with azaleas tumbling in lush bouquets outside her doors, — enough to satisfy even the most persnickety gardener. Her architectural vision was consistently a house that was inside out, where she could look out on the forest or garden or ocean.

At Pine Mountain, her vision was, without a doubt, the most harmonious for not only did her view include her forest garden, but also a view of the School that she had designed and placed in the middle of Eden … well at least, Paradise..Her architectural eye frequently mingled with her eye for landscape architecture and she frequently invited Pine Mountain Students to spend a summer in Kansas City to work in landscaping, construction, childcare, an other jobs familiar to the Kentucky students. They came from Kentucky for Summer work as well as more permanent positions following graduation. Their jobs borrowed many of the disciplined elements that were followed at Pine Mountain Settlement in their work-study programs.

To see additional examples of Hook’s architectural work outside Pine Mountain Settlement School, see, particularly, her home and associated architecture in Kansas City in the following nicely photographed Architectural Observer article — “Mary Rockwell Hook: Ahead of Her Time“. The article describes her family homes in Kansas City, Missouri, and in other locations across the country. https://architecturalobserver.com/mary-rockwell-hook-ahead-of-her-time/

This and That is dedicated to Burton Rogers, the long term employee and Director of Pine Mountain Settlement School.