U of A Libraries' Digital Collections
Fay Jones and Frank Lloyd Wright:
Organic Architecture Comes to Arkansas

Frank Lloyd Wright and Fay Jones: Intertwined Careers - a Timeline

Notable Dates

June 8, 1867 Frank Lloyd Wright born in Richland Center, WI
January 31, 1921 Euine Fay Jones born in Pine Bluff, AR
1927/28 Jones family settles in El Dorado, AR
1938 Jones graduates from El Dorado High School
1938 Jones sees “Popular Science” film in El Dorado movie theatre on Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1936 Johnson’s Wax headquarters in Racine, WI
1938 Jones enrolls in civil engineering program at the University of Arkansas
1939 Wright designs Goetsch-Winckler residence, Okemos, MI
1942 Jones enlists in U. S. Navy
1943 Jones marries Mary Elizabeth “Gus” Knox of Hot Springs, AR, in San Francisco, CA
1943 Wright’s original design for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
1946 Jones enrolls in University of Arkansas architecture program in the College of Engineering
1947 Wright’s Usonia II Housing Master Plan, Pleasantville, NY
1948 Wright’s house for Sol Friedman, Usonia II, Pleasantville, NY
March 15-18, 1949 Jones meets Frank Lloyd Wright in Houston, TX, at the American Institute of Architects conference where Wright receives the AIA Gold Medal
1949 Wright’s house for Edward Serlin, Usonia II, Pleasantville, NY
1950 Jones receives Bachelor of Architecture degree as one of the first five graduates from the University of Arkansas architecture program
1950 With University of Arkansas professor Michael Stousland, Jones designs the Barnhart residence and the Hostetter residence, Fayetteville, AR
1950-1951 Jones receives fellowship and graduate teaching assistantship in architecture at The Rice Institute (University), Houston, TX; receives Master’s in Architecture degree in 1951
1951 Jones designs the Hantz residence, Fayetteville, AR
1951 Wright’s house for Roland Reisley, Usonia II, Pleasantville, NY
1951-1953 Jones teaches at University of Oklahoma School of Architecture, where architect Bruce Goff is chair
1951-1953?? Jones meets Wright again at a faculty dinner arranged by Bruce Goff at University of Oklahoma
1952 Wright’s Price Tower for the H.C. Price Company, Bartlesville, OK
Easter 1953 Jones is invited to Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona, for Easter celebration. Attends for the next ten years.
June-August 1953 Jones and family (wife, Gus, and daughters, Cami and Janis) spend three-month apprenticeship at Taliesin in Spring Green, WI
September 1953 Jones accepts professorship at University of Arkansas
1953 Wright’s house for Harold Price, Jr., Bartlesville, OK
1953 Wright’s Usonian Exhibition House and Pavilion for Sixty Years of Living Architecture, New York, NY
1954 Jones establishes his architectural practice in Fayetteville, AR, as Euine Fay Jones, Architect
1954 Wright’s Usonian house for Bachman and Wilson, Millstone, NJ
1954 Wright’s Beth Sholom Synagogue, Elkins Park, PA
1954 Wright’s house for I. N. Hagan (Kentuck Knob), Chalkhill, PA
1956 Jones completes family’s personal residence, his first completed project
1956 Wright’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, final revised scheme, New York, NY
1957 Jones completes the Dr. Burdge Green residence in Stilwell, OK, his first complete independent residence
1957 Jones designs the Brothers residence, Fayetteville, AR
April 15, 1958 Frank Lloyd Wright lectures at the University of Arkansas
1958 Jones designs the Dr. and Mrs. Calvin Bain residence, Prairie Grove, AR
April 9, 1959 Frank Lloyd Wright dies in Phoenix, AZ
October 1959 House Beautiful, the first national magazine to recognize Jones’s work, highlights the Bain residence in Prairie Grove, AR
1961 Jones becomes full Professor of Architecture, University of Arkansas
1961 Jones receives two “Homes for Better Living” awards from the American Institute of Architects for the 1960 Adrian Fletcher residence, Fayetteville, AR, and the 1960 Sam Walton residence, Bentonville, AR
May 1962 Progressive Architecture, the first national architectural journal to recognize Jones’s work, features his design of his family residence
1963 Jones designs the Rex Smith residence, Fayetteville, AR
1964 Jones designs the Graham Hall residence (“Pine Knoll”), Little Rock, AR
1964 Jones receives the AIA Award of Merit for the Mrs. Harold Snow residence, Fayetteville, AR
1966 Jones receives the AIA Award of Merit for “Stoneflower,” the 1965 Shaheen-Goodfellow residence, Eden Isle, AR
1966 Jones designs the Parsons residence, Springdale, AR
1966-1974 Jones serves as chairman of the University of Arkansas Department of Architecture
1968 Jones designs the Goetsch-Winckler residence, Fayetteville, AR
1974-1976 Jones serves as first dean of the re-named University of Arkansas School of Architecture
1975 Jones designs “Raheen,” the Alice and Bob Alexander residence, outside Fayetteville, AR
1977 Jones’s practice re-named to Fay Jones and Associates
1978 Jones receives the AIA Award of Merit for the Sam Pallone residence, near Little Rock, AR
1980 Jones designs the Hotz residence, Fayetteville, AR
1980 Thorncrown Chapel, Eureka Springs, AR, opens
1981 Jones receives AIA Honor Award for Thorncrown Chapel
1986 Jones’s practice re-named to Fay Jones + Maurice Jennings Architects, with Jennings becoming a partner
1987 Jones receives a second AIA Honor Award, this time for the Reed residence, Hogeye, AR
1988 Jones retires as Professor Emeritus from the University of Arkansas
February 22, 1990 Jones receives the 48th AIA Gold Medal Award “in recognition of a significant body of work of lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture,” the only one of Wright’s disciples to receive the award
1990 Jones receives a third AIA Honor Award, this time for Pinecote Pavilion at the Crosby Arboretum, Picayune, MS
1991 ?? Jones’s Thorncrown Chapel named in AIA survey as the best work of American architecture of the 1980s
1991 Jones ranked as one of the “10 most influential living architects” in a national survey conducted by the AIA
1998 Jones retires from practice
1998 Jones’s last completed design, the Fulbright Peace Fountain on the campus of the University of Arkansas, is dedicated
May 2000 AIArchitect reports Thorncrown Chapel elected as one of the “Top Ten Buildings of the 20th Century” by members of the AIA
August 30, 2004 Fay Jones dies at his home in Fayetteville, AR, at the age of 83

 

The main sources used in creating this timeline include Fay Jones: The Architecture of E. Fay Jones, FAIA, by Robert A. Ivy (Washington, D.C. : American Institute of Architects, c1992); The Arkansas Designs of E. Fay Jones 1956-1997, by Cheryl Nichols and Helen Barry (Little Rock, AR: Arkansas Historic Preservation Program of the Department of Arkansas Heritage, [1999]); “Biographical Time Line for Fay Jones (1921-2004),” by Callie Williams (University of Arkansas Special Collections, Spring 2006); and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation website at http://www.franklloydwright.org/about/timeline.html .

Janet Parsch December 10, 2014

Valid HTML 5

Last updated: February 4, 2015