Edward Bright Hussey (1897-1976)

Edward Bright Hussey graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in architecture in 1923. During his schooling, he spent the summers working for Julia Morgan, including work on the Hearst Castle in San Simeon during the summer of 1921. From 1926 to 1927 Hussey represented Julia Morgan in Honolulu during the building of the YWCA. As part of his duties, he wrote and sent daily progress reports to Morgan to be mailed on the weekly ship to San Francisco along with rolls of film and annotated and dated drawings. Hussey also served as supervising architect in Elsah, Illinois during the building of Principia College from 1931 to 1936. He assisted architect Bernard Maybeck with the design and construction of the college, designing several buildings on his own, including the Writer’s Cabin and faculty houses, and influencing the design of the Morey Field House. During 1933 he left Elsah for approximately a year (while the work on Principia shut down) to work at Julia Morgan’s Northern California Wyntoon construction site for William Randolph Hearst.

Edward Hussey lived in Japan from 1927 to 1930 while supervising the Tokyo YWCA construction for Julia Morgan. He also worked on other projects in and around Tokyo including schools and church buildings. Back in the Bay Area in 1930, he worked briefly for another architect before being hired by Bernard Maybeck for the Principia College project. After Principia, Hussey worked in the State Office in Sacramento (1938), was superintendent on a Modesto project from 1951 to 1952, and worked for the Arabia American Oil Company in Saudi Arabia (1952). While he contributed information to various historians and biographers of Julia Morgan and Bernard Maybeck, there is scarce documentation regarding Hussey’s own life.