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 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, autobiography, Wellesley College, Ecole des Beaux-Arts,  Jean-Marcel Arbutin, Art Institute of Chicago, women architects, Katherine Pettit, Ethel de Long Zande, Marguerite Butler Bidstrup, Angela Melville, Luigi Zande,  gender bias, American Institute of Architects, Kansas City, MO, Howe, Holt and Cutler, Old Log, Big Log, Laurel House I, Laurel House II, 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 Rogers, Glyn Morris, Gladys Morris,

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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.  She was 101. 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,  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 views.  At the end of her life, the Florida Siesta Key home was her “White House” —low to the earth with sweeping views and gardens, and gardens — 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. 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’s natural architecture. Further, she frequently invited Pine Mountain Students to spend a summer in Kansas City to work in landscaping, construction, childcare, an other jobs that instilled in them an even greater appreciation for sharing their native talents to improve the land, it’s bounty, and the education to sustain life. To bring the familiar love of the land of the Kentucky students to new geographies worked well. They came from Kentucky for Summer work as well as more permanent positions following graduation. Their work and later jobs borrowed from their native skills and many of the disciplined elements that were nurtured 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/

Mary dedicated her brief autobiography, This and That, to Burton Rogers, the long-term educator and Director of Pine Mountain Settlement School, who encouraged her to write about her inspiring life.

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GALLERY  THIS and THAT by Mary Rockwell Hook

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MARY ROCKWELL HOOK (Biography)
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK Autobiography 1970 “This and That”

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK Guide to Correspondence

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1920 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1921 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1922 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1923 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1924 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1925 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1926 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1927 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1928 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1929 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1929 Correspondence Line Fork Architectural Planning Cabin 2
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1930 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1931 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1932 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK Correspondence 1940 Architectural Planning PMSS
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1947 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1948 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1949 Correspondence
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK 1962 Correspondence

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK Album I
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK Photo Album II Part I

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK Correspondence 1940 Architectural Planning PMSS

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK Correspondence 1940 II Box 19: 2-85

NOTES – 2013, Spring, p. 11-12
NOTES – 2019, Winter, pp. 6-7

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MARY ROCKWELL HOOK ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS & PLANNING:

BUILT ENVIRONMENT Architectural Planning Guide

REFLECTIONS: SUMMARY OF THE ARCHITECTURAL PLAN

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK Talk 1920 Architectural Planning at PMSS

DRAWING OF MASTER BUILDING PLAN FOR PINE MOUNTAIN c. 1913

LAND USE Plan for Pine Mountain Mid-1930s

 DRAWINGS FOR SCHOOL BUILDINGS IN SITU

To review Mary Rockwell Hook’s architecture at Pine Mountain Settlement School, see also BUILT ENVIRONMENT for specific details of the buildings.

For more information, see also the following:

BIG LOG PLANNING
LAUREL HOUSE I PLANNING
LAUREL HOUSE II PLANNING
WEST WIND PLANNING

SEE ALSO:

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK (Bigraphy)

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK “This and That” (Autobiography)

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK CORRESPONDENCE GUIDE

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK ALBUM I
MARY ROCKWELL HOOK ALBUM II 

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK Architectural Planning at PMSS a Talk 1920

MARY ROCKWELL HOOK Line Fork Architectural Planning Cabin 2 1929

GUIDE TO ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS at PMSS