When the late A. Hays Town designed a home for one of his clients, he wasn’t just the architect on the project. He became the interior designer, the consultant and, above all, a friend of the family.
“A lot of his clients wouldn’t paint a room or move a piece of furniture without checking first with him,” recalls Town’s daughter, Blanche Gladney. “People depended on him to be more than an architect. He would advise them on everything—not just decorating, but life.”
It’s a story that speaks volumes about the amount of respect Town commanded and the degree of influence he had. For more than 65 years, he built houses and buildings throughout south Louisiana and the southern United States, garnering countless national awards and receiving universal praise. He created and defined for south Louisiana—and especially Baton Rouge—an architectural style of understated elegance that is all its own. Moreover, he maintained personal relationships with his many clients, people of all ages who became his friends and delighted in his company until his death in 2005 at the age of 101.
“I was always struck by the fact that he had so many visitors, even at the end,” says Town’s son, Sonny. “Most old people don’t have visitors, but he always did because he had friends of all ages.”
Perhaps it’s because he was blessed with a good personality and a warm, welcoming demeanor. Perhaps it’s because for most of his life he knew what he wanted to do and was good at it. Likely, it was a little bit of both.
His career started young. Even as a boy growing up in Lafayette in the 1910s and 1920s, A. Hays Town was enamored of architecture. Family lore has it that he designed his first home, for his parents, at the age of 15. After graduating from high school, he went to what was then known as Southwestern Louisiana Institute in Lafayette and then to Tulane University, where he received his degree in architecture.
The year was 1926, and it was an exciting time to be in architecture. The modernist movement was just getting under way and architects were outdoing one another to create structures that were unlike any that had been built before. Town’s creative energies were set ablaze. Though he would eventually become known for his use of old building materials and traditional designs, he excelled at modernism. He was recognized as one of the most outstanding young modernists in American architecture, and Life magazine featured on its cover one of his designs—a monolithic concrete building in Jackson, Miss., that houses Bailey Magnet High School. The school, built in 1938, recently was voted as a top architectural site by the state chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
“He was very gifted and felt very much at home with modern architecture,” Gladney says.
For the first decade of his career, he worked in Jackson, designing modern, commercial buildings. In 1939, he relocated to Baton Rouge, which would be his home for the rest of his life. Town loved Baton Rouge, preferring it to his native Lafayette because it was bigger and presented more opportunities. For the next two decades, he grew a successful commercial design firm, and though many people today might not realize it, Town was responsible for designing the Union Federal Savings and Loan building, St. James Episcopal Day School and parish house, First Baptist Church and the Department of Transportation and Development, among others.
Town enjoyed the work and thrived on being busy. Though he was popular and successful in the then-small city of Baton Rouge, he wasn’t particularly active in the community and didn’t volunteer his time to social or civic organizations. He collected art, but his main hobby was his work.
That didn’t mean he was anti-social. On the contrary, Town loved people. He so enjoyed making the rounds and entertaining callers that he often worked during the middle of the night or in the pre-dawn hours to better free up his days for visiting. He also liked having a busy household with growing children, and he would sketch his designs amidst the chaos of it all.
“He did his work in the middle of the room on a card table with dogs and kids running around,” Gladney says. “He loved kids.”
In the 1960s, when many would have considered slowing up or easing into retirement, Town turned his attention to doing exclusively what he most enjoyed: residential design. In the process, he created and defined a style that captures the essence of traditional Louisiana.
Town’s earlier homes borrowed from colonial and Georgian influences. The style for which he is best known, however, relies more heavily on French and Spanish architecture and includes the use of recycled building materials. Town was one of the first architects to salvage old floorboards, mantles or flagstones and incorporate them into new houses. It gave his homes a comfortable, elegant feel.
“That kind of became his signature,” Gladney says. “It became known as the Hays Town style.”
Part of Town’s success lay in the fact that he was both an architect and an artist—arguably, an artist first. He could draw so well that he didn’t need to use templates. He also was quick, finishing sketches and designs in a fraction of the time it would take other professionals. More important, he had an innate sense of proportion, balance and scale, which made his designs work every time.
“His sense of the aesthetic was his greatest genius,” says landscape designer Michael Hopping, who landscaped many Town houses in Baton Rouge and also considered him a mentor. “It just came to him naturally.”
Town also was gifted with a gentle demeanor. It was a trait that served him well, especially since he took complete control over every aspect of his projects and dealt with many personalities along the way.
“He could tell a contractor or a bricklayer to knock down everything they had done for the past week,” Hopping says. “But he would do it in such a gentle way they couldn’t be mad at him.”
Town exercised that same tact when dealing with his many clients, who would frequently seek his advice on new pieces of furniture or works of art they had acquired for their homes.
“First, he would ask them if they had purchased it,” Sonny Town says. “If they said yes, he would tell them it looked fine. If they said no, that someone had given it to them, for instance, then he would be more honest. He never wanted to make someone feel bad.”
One of the main reasons Town’s houses were so popular is that they were comfortable. They were formal without being imposing, elegant without being ostentatious. They were built to scale on lots that were wide and deep, and Town placed a heavy emphasis on landscaping and gardens. He enjoyed the outdoors and wanted his homes to have spacious yards with green space and gardens.
“He wouldn’t like the McMansions that are built today, one on top of the other,” Sonny Town says. “He liked things to be comfortable and believed it was very important for his homes to have nice yards.”
Today, there are an estimated 1,000 homes that Town designed and built. Many of those houses bear a plaque from the Foundation for Historical Louisiana identifying it as an “original Hays Town.” Countless more in the area imitate that style, which is not surprising considering how many architects in Baton Rouge cut their teeth studying under Town.
Hopping, though not an architect, is among those who benefited from Town’s time and patience. As a young landscape designer in the 1970s, he would bring his “humble” sketches to Town, who would gently, kindly, ever tactfully pick them apart and redraw them.
“The wonderful thing about him is that he was so accessible,” Hopping says. “He would make time for people. I learned more from Mr. Town than I ever did in school.”
Many architects and designers in these parts tell similar stories, and Town’s influence lives on today in their designs. His legacy also endures in the homes and buildings designed by his own progeny. Sonny Town is an engineer, and three of his six children are in the construction business. Gladney’s son also is a contractor and her grandson is a student in the School of Architecture at LSU.
Those who knew Town well say he would have been pleased to be named the Hall of Fame winner, though it would have been just one of the countless awards and honorary degrees he received over the years. Despite the accolades, though, he never sought praise and glory. His work was its own reward and his satisfaction came from knowing he had created something unique and beautiful for each of his clients.
“He loved to show his talent and share with you what he was working on,” Hopping says. “It was truly a privilege to know him.”
Hall Of Fame Laureate: A. Hays Town [1903-2005]
Accomplishments: Has been called the South’s premier architect. His works stretch from commercial to residential. Has been featured in numerous national magazines, including Time, Southern Living, Southern Accents and Veranda. Established a successful commercial practice in Baton Rouge in 1939, but turned to his passion for residential architecture in the 1960s at an age when many people would have considered retirement. Acclaimed for his distinctive style, which adapts to modern use the traditional elements of classic Louisiana, including raised front porches and exterior stairs, Spanish courtyards, exterior French doors with Creole-influenced, full-length shutters, pigeonniers, tree alleys, 13-foot ceilings, heavy use of woods such as cypress and heart of pine, plantation-style separate shutters and brick floors with a special beeswax finish.
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