Résumé

Draftsman, Jerome G. Armstrong, Architect, San Bernardino, CA, 1949; Designer, Confer and Willis, Architects, Oakland, CA, 1949-1950; Crutcher's first completed architectural design was for the Bank of Kodiak, AK, c. 1951. His father was the bank's president. Designer, Pietro Belluschi, Architect, Portland, OR, 1951; Architect, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, Portland Office, Portland, OR, c. 1952-1955, 1956-1959; Designer, Buchan, Laird and Buchan, Melbourne, Australia, 1955-1956; Principal, Lewis Crutcher and Associates, Architects, Portland, OR, 1959-1967; Director of Planning and Research, Minneapolis Parks System, Minneapolis, MN, c. 1968-1969; Chief of Planning and Design, East Bay Regional Park District, Oakland, CA, c. 1969-1985. He retired at age 60, and moved back to his childhood home of Seattle.

Teaching

Lecturer, University of Oregon (U of O), Eugene, OR, c. 1960-1962. Visiting Professor of Architecture, Reed College, Portland, OR; Visiting Professor of Architecture, University of California, Berkeley (UCB), Berkeley, CA; Visiting Professor of Architecture, California Polytechnic State University, School of Architecture, (unknown if this was at San Luis Obispo or Pomona, CA).

Professional Awards

Award of Commendation for urban design and beautification, American Institute of Architects, Portland Chapter.

Crutcher won a Award of Merit from the American Institute of Architects, Oregon Chapter, for his Equitable Savings and Loan Association Building, Newport, OR, Branch, in 03/1961. (See "Oregon Chapter, AIA, Names Design Winners,"Western Architect and Engineer, vol. 221, no. 4, 04/1961, p. 7.)

High School/College

Queen Anne High School, Queen Anne, Seattle, WA; he attended high school with the noted cartoonist Hank Ketcham (1920-2001), creator of the popular strip, Dennis the Menace, who was one year ahead of him in school. Like Ketcham, Crutcher was active as a cartoonist at Queen Anne High, but he had to wait until Ketcham graduated to be able to place his cartoons in the high school's yearbook.

B.Arch., University of Washington, Seattle (UW), Seattle, WA, 1944.

M.F.A. (Architecture), Claremont University College, Claremont, CA, 1949.

Relocation

Crutcher contracted Alzheimer's Disease and passed away at the age of 79 in Tacoma, WA.

Parents

His mother resided in Bayview Manor in Seattle during her retirement. He had a sister, Charlotte Crutcher Kelley, who took care of Lewis during his battle with Alzheimer's disease.

Spouse

Lewis Crutcher married three times. The first marriage was to Virginia Lee Garver Crutcher, whom he met at the University of Washington. They married on 03/01/1944 in Seattle.

He re-married to Judith Wolf Crutcher, an architect, when he moved to the Mill Valley, CA, area between 1969-mid-1980s, and a last time when he returned to live in Seattle during the last years of his life. (Most of the information in this record was provided by his daughter, Victoria Crutcher Meier, in an email to the author, 05/09/2014.)

Children

He had two daughters from his marriage to Virginia Garver Crutcher: Victoria Crutcher Meier, who became an English teacher, and Leslie Crutcher Thompson, a noted ceramicist. Crutcher also had two sons with his second wife.

Biographical Notes

Lewis Crutcher and his wife, Virginia, resettled for one year in Australia, where he worked for an architectural firm. The family then took an around-the-world tour during the first half of 1956, taking them to Sri Lanka, through the Red Sea, into the Mediterranean, where they landed at Marseilles, France. They toured Europe, taking in a large number of architectural sites during March, April and May of that year, before returning to Portland, OR.

Some of Crutcher's personal library was donated to the library of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP) at the University of Washington.

• Seattle, WA (Architect's Birth)
  Seattle, WA

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• Tacoma, WA (Architect's Death)
  Tacoma, WA

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