Top Stories 2014: #2 — Shaw House

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For more than 45 years, a two-story, 113-year-old home, located at 2500 N. Lawrence St., was home to the late Tacoma architect Stanley T. Shaw, his wife, Clara, and their four children.

Shaw was born on April 2, 1896, in Sturgis, Mich., to a family that included his father, Robert, who was a minister; mother, Mary, a homemaker; and one older brother, Frederic. Around the turn of the century, the Shaws moved to Tacoma, where Robert served as interim minister at Immanuel Presbyterian Church. Stanley graduated from Tacoma High School, and Frederic served in the military during World War I. When he returned to Tacoma, Frederic partnered with Stanley to open an architectural firm in downtown Tacoma.

Between 1919 and 1930, the Shaw brothers designed more than a dozen residences, churches, schools, and business headquarters, including the First United Presbyterian Church (built in 1922, located at 1619 6th Ave.); Tacoma Gospel Tabernacle (built in 1923, located at 502 S. M St.); Wainwright Elementary School (built in 1924, located at 130 Alameda St., in Fircrest); Dash Point Elementary School (built in 1924, located at 6546 Dash Point NE, and listed on Pierce County’s Register of Historic Places); an education wing of Immanuel Presbyterian Church (built in 1927, located at 901 N. J St.); and the headquarters for Goodwill Industries (built in 1930, located at 2356 Tacoma Ave. S.).

After Frederic moved to California in 1929, Shaw continued his architectural practice. He designed the Broadway Apartments (built in 1928, located at 31 Broadway) and the Knights of Columbus Hall (built in 1928, located at 2311-19 6th Ave.). In 1931, he purchased the home at North 25th Street and North Lawrence Street, and turned one room into a home office, where he started to garner attention for the residential homes he designed. He was commissioned by Sears, Roebuck & Co. in 1937 to design a model home located at 1920 N. Union St. A local newspaper reported nearly 16,000 people visited the home. Also that year, Stanley contributed two designs to The Blue Book of Home Plans for Homes in the Pacific Northwest, a collection of work by the period’s leading architects.

Although the home at 2500 N. Lawrence St. wasn’t originally built by Shaw, it was where Stanley and Clara raised four children, and it also served as a sort of laboratory for some of Shaw’s architectural ideas. Beyond architecture, Stanley and Clara were active members of several civic organizations. They helped to organize local Quaker meetings, and supported the NAACP, Tacoma YWCA, and the American Friends Service Committee.

“The thing about Stanley was that he had this incredibly creative mind,” explained Sharon Winters, a long-time Tacoma historic preservation advocate who, along with her husband, Kendall Reid, bought the home in July of 1997 (see “Shaw House: A Tacoma architect’s home and idea lab could soon be a local historic landmark,” Tacoma Daily Index, July 17, 2014). “He was trying things out on his house that he couldn’t necessarily do in anybody else’s house.”

Stanley died on July 21, 1976, at the age of 80. Clara Shaw sold the house a year later, but remained in Tacoma until her death in 1981.

This summer, Winters and Reid nominated the Shaw House to Tacoma’s Register of Historic Places.

Tacoma’s Landmarks Preservation Commission conducted a preliminary review of the nomination during a public meeting in July. A public hearing on the nomination was held in August (see “Shaw House: Public hearing Aug. 13 for historic nomination,” Tacoma Daily Index, Aug. 4, 2014). The commission approved the nomination to add the Shaw House to the City of Tacoma’s Register of Historic Places (see “Shaw House: Tacoma’s Landmarks Preservation Commission approves historic nomination,” Tacoma Daily Index, Aug. 18, 2014). Tacoma City Council’s Neighborhoods and Housing Committee reviewed the nomination in October before Tacoma City Council approved a resolution placing the home on the City of Tacoma’s Register of Historic Places (see “Shaw House: Final vote ahead for Tacoma landmark nomination,” Tacoma Daily Index, Oct. 14, 2014 and “Shaw House: Late architect’s home now Tacoma landmark,” Tacoma Daily Index, October 29, 2014).