Structure: Wagner House
Location: Spring City, Tennessee
Architect: Paul “Smitty” Smithhisler
Date: 1961
Story: I’m just gonna spoil something up front here: there are so many photos of the house I want to showcase that I have no choice but to sprinkle them all throughout the blog (willy nilly). Whatever ones I can’t get to, I’ve tucked at the end… hopefully that’s alright with y’all.
When Aubrey “Red” Wagner started his career with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), he was guaranteed that the job would last one year. The rest was up to him. How could he have known that he’d retire after working there for 44 years?
Red was born January 12, 1912, and raised on a dairy farm in Hillsboro, Wisconsin. He graduated in 1933 from the University of Wisconsin with a Bachelors of Science degree in civil engineering, and it was during that same year he married Dorothea J. Huber of Sioux City, Iowa.
Searching for work during the Great Depression proved rather difficult for the newlyweds (and soon-to-be parents), which is why the news that the TVA was looking for engineers seemed worth the 800 mile trek. Speaking of the allure of the TVA, Red told the New York Times, “Some of the best men in our [engineering] class were working in filling stations.”
Red’s long (and rather illustrious) career with the TVA began with him starting in the general engineering and geology division in ’34. The same New York Times article mentioned above noted that Red started “as an $1,800-a-year engineer.” There, he spent several years assisting in the planning and development of the Tennessee River navigation facilities.
His tireless work over the next two decades led President John F. Kennedy to appoint him to the TVA board of directors in 1961 (he was appointed to Chairman of the TVA just a year later). Red would occupy the position of Chairman through not only Kennedy’s administration, but through Nixon’s as well.
During his time at the TVA, Red worked with many a talented architect. Some of the architects had names you’d recognize, like, for instance, Alfred Clauss (who designed a modernist colony of houses called Little Switzerland) or Roland Wank (who was notable for designing, among other things, Norris Dam which is pictured below).
But today’s story is not about a dam, and it’s not about Roland Wank. No, today’s story is about a different architect that Red met while working a the TVA. The architect’s name was Paul Smithhisler, Smitty to his friends.
Smitty was born in Ohio in 1889. He was a talented artist, and it was this sketching (in combination with some incredible bravery) that earned him the Distinguished Service Cross, the French Croix de Guerre cord and a Silver Star Medal in World War I.
Here are a few of the sketches that Smitty drew while serving a tour. Sorry for the low resolution, it’s all I could find!
Smitty’s son Jack, who I had the pleasure of interviewing, says Smitty studied at the Chicago Art Institute sometime around 1909-1912. At that time, the school didn’t have an architectural degree so Smitty studied drawing.
Post school, Smitty worked for a Chicago architectural firm (Jack thinks it was called Small, Smith & Reebe), working out of their West Virginia office. Early on, Smitty didn’t have an architectural degree, so Jack figures he was probably apprenticing.
After WWII, around 1946, Smitty bought 23 acres along the Tennessee River and designed + built himself a house there (with an assist from the neighbors next door, who had also sold him the parcel). Jack who was in high school at the time, told me that he and his brother (Joseph) would visit their dad in the summers when school was out. No word yet on whether that house still exists but you can bet I’m on the hunt for it.
I don’t have a specific date that Smitty started working at the TVA, but Smitty’s grandson (Tom) told me he retired from the organization in about 1971.
At some point during his TVA career, Smitty crossed paths with Red. I have almost no details about their relationship, but I assume it was a good one because right around 1960, Red asked Smitty to design a lakefront cabin for him, and Smitty obliged.
Red already owned a beautiful parcel of land overlooking a lake that the TVA had helped to create. It’s no mystery that he wanted a house built on the parcel, either, as it’s maybe one of the best looking slices of earth around.
The cabin itself is a great example of East Tennessee mid-century modern architecture. It roofline has a distinctive shed-style pitch to it.
At some point, Red and his wife were featured in a magazine (not sure which one…yet) and you can see, in the color photo below, that Smitty left the living room roof beams intentionally exposed for a dramatic effect.
Since these exposed beams were clearly the standout feature, let’s see if we can’t get a better view of them as they were being built
The other color photo (below) is from that mystery magazine shoot. We’ll find the magazine one day.
The Wagner family still owns the cabin, and they were kind enough to send me some mid 1970s photos of their family that feature the cabin.
Today, the house still retains its original shape. The Wagner heirs did mention that a lot of the original wood siding wasn’t holding up very well (what with Tennessee being as moist as it is) so at some point they replaced it with stone and metal to weatherproof it. But they assured me that was the only major change they’d enacted.
It’s like Red’s grandson (Mark Elam) said, even today “its still a work in progress.”
I’ll end on this note. Since Red was an engineer, he took meticulous notes and kept records of everything, including the house’s construction. Scroll down to see the rest of them.
PS: First, I’ve decided that blog’s do have PS’s, so get used to it. But secondly, and more importantly, this blog owes a great deal to my intrepid historian friend Brian McKnight, to Smitty’s son Jack, and to the Wagner family. Thank you to each and every one of you for helping me document this marvelous aspect of East Tennessee’s modernism.
