Black History Month is a time to celebrate the extraordinary contributions Black Americans have made in our nation's history. This month, we are honored to share the story of Benjamin McAdoo, Washington State's first licensed Black architect who at one point in time, made Bothell his home.
Benjamin McAdoo (1920-1981) was born in Pasadena, California on October 29, 1920. He attended the University of Southern California before transferring to the University of Washington to complete his B.A. in Architecture in 1946. He later worked at Chiarelli and Kirk before becoming the first African American architect to be licensed in Washington state and starting his architecture practice in the kitchen of his Seattle apartment in 1947.
During the first decade of his career, McAdoo worked on many residential and commercial projects in the Seattle area including houses, churches and office buildings. In 1951-1952 he was one of several local architects who designed small, economical houses in the Central District of Seattle for the Houses of Merit program which, by some estimates, consisted of nearly 100 affordable homes and in 1957, he designed a home for his own family in unincorporated Bothell, reportedly after some urging from a Bothellite with whom he had established a friendship.
The Benjamin F., Jr. and Thelma McAdoo House is located in the Westhill neighborhood, south of Bothell High School, where it sits on over half an acre that was originally part of an orchard during Bothell’s early days as an agricultural mecca. A shining example of his style, the design blends modernism with regionalism to create a modern home integrated with the natural landscape and built to take advantage of the Lake Washington views.
Working out of his Bothell home at first, McAdoo designed several other buildings in the Bothell and Kenmore area. One of his first projects in Bothell was the First Baptist Church on 104th and 192nd (1959), still standing but with some alterations. Also in 1959, he designed Bothell’s first dedicated office building, the Marshall Paris Insurance building on Bothell Way which was a prominent visual feature on the highway and well known to locals. There, he had an office alongside Gene Pearce Realtors and the Tack Shack (before it moved across the street). It was demolished in 2014. He also designed the Green Residence on 94th Ave. NE and an addition and an addition to the Dr. Walter Sundstrom house on NE 187th in downtown Bothell.
The McAdoo family left Bothell in about 1961 when Mr. McAdoo accepted an administrative position with the United States Agency on International Development (USAID) on the island of Jamaica. There, he promoted a modular, low-cost housing design that was widely manufactured in the country. He later worked for the General Services Administration (GSA) and the McAdoos took up residence in Washington, D.C. where he was part of the design team for the city’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
In 1964, Mr. McAdoo moved his family back to the Seattle area where they moved into Bellevue’s Hilltop Neighborhood and he began working for the City of Auburn’s Public Building Services Department as well as taking on private clients. During this time, Mr. McAdoo also served as president of the Seattle Chapter of the NAACP and broadcast a weekly radio show focused on social issues. During the 1970s, he focused mostly on government projects and institutional work. A few of his designs from this period include the UW Ethnic Cultural Center and a remodel of Gowen Hall on the University of Washington campus, the Queen Anne Pool, the Edison Building at Seattle Central Community College, the King County Blood Bank at Southcenter and several branches of Seattle First National Bank.
Benjamin F. McAdoo, Jr. worked steadily until his death in 1984 and his firm continued working under the name of McAdoo, Malcolm and Youel, Architects.