Exploring an architect's legacy

Want to go?

What: Tour of houses and buildings designed by John L.E. Boardman

When: 1-5 p.m. Sunday, May 5

Where: Cape Girardeau

Admission: $12 per person at the door at any of the stops or $10 in advance; tickets may be reserved by contacting the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri at 334-9233 or e-mailing artscape@clas.net.

By Sam Blackwell ~ Southeast Missourian

During nearly half a century as an architect, the late John L.E. Boardman designed or renovated more than 500 houses and buildings in Southeast Missouri. His distinctive hand and originality are all over Cape Girardeau and particularly in restorations downtown, where he was living and working at the time of his death in 1999.

Before starting work, Boardman always asked a client the same essential question: Where are you going to put the Christmas tree?

That was very important to him, says his wife, Evelyn. "He said, 'There has to be a place to put the Christmas tree.'"

On May 5, the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri will sponsor a self-guided tour of six houses and businesses Boardman designed or renovated, including the Arts Council galleries themselves.

The buildings and houses on the tour are:

The Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, 119 Independence.

The Peter and Jan Trump Home, 1902 Sailer Circle.

The Charles L. and Judi Hutson Town Homes, 245 Aquamsi Bluff.

Celebrations by Request, 615 Bellevue.

The C.R. and Betty Talbert home, 2747 Jewel Drive.

The office of Dr. Don Dennington, 2103 Broadway.

Boardman looked for aesthetics in all things, from buildings to art. "He didn't care if a car ran if it had nice lines," says his wife, a newly elected member of the Cape Girardeau City Council.

Aesthetics distinguished his building designs, she said. "There was always just a little bit more, a quality that set his work apart."

The Trump home, designed for physician Melvin Kasten and former state Rep. Mary Kasten in 1961, reflects their interest in Japanese architecture and art. The Boardmans lived and worked in the building now occupied by the restaurant Celebrations by Request. He also renovated the Arts Council building, once a dilapidated structure, for his own use. The Talbert home employs 22 Doric columns and has walls made of safety glass. Dennington's dental office presented the problem of putting a large building on a small lot while maintaining some green space.

Lifetime of design

Boardman was supervising construction of the Hutson Town Homes overlooking the Mississippi River at the time of his death of a heart attack at 73.

Details about the buildings will be available at each stop. Refreshments and live music will be provided at some locations.

Her husband was tough but kind with those who put together his designs, Evelyn Boardman says. A good carpenter himself, he was concerned that the quality of craftsmanship was falling, she said.

"He wanted things done right. There was no question about that," says Kent Bratton, director of Planning and Zoning Department for the city of Cape Girardeau.

Bratton's working relationship with Boardman goes back to the days when Boardman was the only architect in the Ironton, Mo., area and Bratton was with the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning Commission in Perryville, Mo. Iron County needed to build a jail, he recalled, but the official in charge forgot about the application for federal funding until two weeks before the deadline.

Boardman and Bratton furiously worked out the design using a sheet of plywood lying on two saw horses as a drafting table. Iron County got the grant and built the jail.

From new banks and churches to renovations, Boardman approached each project on its own merits, Bratton said.

"I don't think any two of them were done in the same way."

He had a talent for blending the old with the new, Bratton said.

Boardman's design for Clippard School won an award. He also designed the Otahki shrine at Trail of Tears State Park.

As an example of Boardman at his best, people often mention the home he designed for Jean Chapman at 1150 N. Henderson St. "I asked him to do a house like Frank Lloyd Wright would do," Chapman recalled. "I said, 'I want to live in a tent and sleep in a cave.'"

The lot slopes dramatically.

"That was John's challenge, to get it on there," Chapman said.

The house actually has four floors, the first of which is filled with gravel to provide a solid foundation. The next floor is basically one room with a sunken living room and a large fireplace. The house now has a different owner and is not on the tour.

Sikeston native

Boardman grew up in Sikeston and played clarinet in a swing band while attending Southeast. After serving in the Navy in World War II, he went to Iowa State University, graduating with honors from the School of Architecture in 1950. His graduating project was a design for a Mars skyscraper he called a "Marscraper."

Boardman was an innovator with different materials, said Cape Girardeau architect Tom Holshouser, who worked for him for six years. He recalled Boardman's design of a Bowling Green, Ky., Lutheran church where the congregation was small and had little money. Boardman found bargain building materials in bricks that had stuck together when the kiln where they were made shut down.

When broken apart, the bricks had jagged edges he used in the design of the church. "It gave it a third dimension," Holshouser said. "...artistically, it worked."

During their 22-year marriage, the Boardmans lived in 11 different houses in Cape Girardeau, all of them renovation projects he wanted to undertake.

"He loved challenges," says Tony Sebek, an architect who was never associated with Boardman but had coffee with him two or three times a week.

He and many others say they can drive around Cape Girardeau and pick out the Boardman-designed homes.

"He had a real unique way of doing everything," Sebek said. "... form followed function real well."

Tom Phillips, another architectural associate, said residential work was Boardman's forte. He was known for "his ability to design something that could be acceptable to the general public and his ability to solve the problem. But he'd rather have been a sculptor and an artist than an architect."

As talented an architect as Boardman was, he was even more passionate about creating art. He left behind hundreds and hundreds of paintings and sculptures, some of which will be displayed beginning May 3 in a show at the Arts Council. Everyone who buys a ticket for the tour is eligible to win a 1997 Boardman still life of fruit in a bowl that his wife donated to the Arts Council.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182