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M. R. Marsh

Marsh, Marion R. ("Steve") (1901-September 4, 1979), architect and engineer, was born in Jacksonville, Florida. He studied at the university in Jacksonville, but not in architecture. This he learned through correspondence courses and work with his brother's architectural firm, Marsh and Sexleby (sp?), in Jacksonville. According to his partner in later years, Teebe P. Hawkins. Marsh was licensed as both an architect and engineer.

Marsh's obituary stated:
 

Mr. Marsh came to Charlotte in 1916 as chief draftsman for the architectural firm of J.M. McMichael. He later joined the chemical engineering form of Peter Gilchrist as chief architect. In 1922, Mr. Marsh opened his own practice in Charlotte.

Marsh practiced in Charlotte his entire career except for a brief period in the early 1940s:
 

During World War II, Mr. Marsh was stationed in New York then Washington with the War Production Board. He served as liason architect for the construction division of the production board.

Between 1922 and retirement in 1964, Marsh designed several well-known Charlotte buildings, a number of residences, and numerous institutional structures throughout the surrounding region. His 1926 Builders Building, 314 West Trade Street, for developer Charles Lambeth, was a seven-story downtown tower that served as headquarters for many of Charlotte's contractors. His design for the Charlotte Armory (destroyed) at Kings Drive and Seventh Street is remembered for its rapid completion, constructed in seventy-three working days to host the thirty-ninth national reunion of Confederate Veterans in 1929. Marsh's most visible surviving structure is the main office of Mutual Savings and Loan at 330 South Tryon Street in the heart of downtown Charlotte, an International Style highrise of blue and whiteglaze masonry completed in 1962.

In 1945 Marsh entered into partnership with Teebe Hawkins, an Atlanta, Georgia, native education in architecture at Clemson University. In 1983 the firm remains in business as Hawkins-Kibler Associates, and retains many of Marsh's old job records. A sampling of Marsh's commissions in Charlotte includes, in addition to those cited above: The Plaza Theatre; Coca Cola Bottling Plant (1930); Plaza-Midwood and Eastover Elementary Schools (1936); Fairview Homes public housing for blacks; apartment house at Queens Road and Pembroke Avenue in Myers Park (1936); Morris Field Army Air Base (1941); Ligget Drug Company,; Oasis Temple (1953); South Branch public library (1956); Frank Sherrill residence in Dilworth (1928); F. Siefart residence in Eastover ; Torrence Hemby residence. Notable pre-World War II commissions outside Charlotte included:the Jefferson County Courthouse, Gaffney, SC.; Kistler Memorial Library, Morganton, N.C.; theatres for Kannapolis, Lincolnton, and Hickory, N.C., and Lake City, S.C.; Tubercular Ward, State Hospital, Morganton; First Baptist Church, Mooresville, N.C.; Dr. S. L. Bryson residence, Winnsboro, S.C.; H.B. Wilkenson residence, Concord, N.C.; W. Lineberger residence, Shelby, N.C.; Kannapolis High School.

Bibliography

Charlotte Observer, September 5, 1977

"Job Listing" typescript of drawings stored in tubes at Hawkins-Kibler Associates, (copies of list are on file at Charlotte Mecklenberg Historic Properties Commission at UNCC Atkins Library Department of Archives and Special Collections).