Henry H. Meyers (1867-1943) designed over 200 buildings in the San Francisco Bay Area, Northern California, Hawaii, and Guam. Meyers was the oldest of nine children born to Jacob and Mary Myers in the rural Alameda County town of Livermore, California. Jacob Meyers was a contractor. After Henry Meyers graduated from high school, he studied architecture at night in San Francisco. Meyers married Bertha S. May in 1897 and soon had a family of three daughters.

Meyers entered the San Francisco firm of Percy & Hamilton as an apprentice around 1890 and by 1900 was chief draftsman. Following the deaths of Percy (1899) and Hamilton (1900), Meyers succeeded the partners as the principal of the firm and supervised the completion of unfinished projects. Meyers completed the Hahnemann Hospital as well as the Kohl Building, which was the first steel frame building in San Francisco. The Kohl Building was one of the few that withstood the 1906 earthquake and fire, becoming a prototype for future steel framed buildings in the area.

By 1904 Meyers had taken on Clarence R. Ward as a partner. Meyers and Ward were awarded a bronze medal for a “Hotel Perspective” at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. The partnership lasted until 1910 and produced numerous commercial buildings during the reconstruction of earthquake-devastated San Francisco. Their most notable project was the Alaska Commercial Building of 1908.

Meyers practiced independently from 1910-1922 designing primarily commercial and institutional buildings. He held the position of Alameda County Architect concurrently with his practice from about 1912 until his retirement in 1935. During this time he designed numerous hospitals, governmental structures and ten Veterans Memorial Buildings in the county. Projects included the Highland Hospital in Oakland, the superstructure of the Posey Tube connecting Oakland and Alameda, the Arroyo Sanitarium, and the Del Valle Farm in Livermore.

After 1922, Meyers was associated with architect George R. Klinkhardt. After 1930, Meyers also practiced with his daughter, Mildred S. Meyers, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. Meyers retired from architectural practice in 1936, and passed away after an extended illness in 1943. Mildred Meyers took over the practice until her death in 1982.

Sources:

Withey, Henry F and Withey, Elise Rathburn, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (Deceased), New Age Publishing Co., Los Angeles, CA, 1956.

Southwest Builder and Contractor, “Henry H. Meyers, Former Bay District Architect, Dead”, June 25, 1943.

Minor, Woodruff, Grant Proposal

Correspondence, Dr. Joseph Armstrong Baird, Jr., Art Consultation, to Jeanette B. Meyers, Relating to the Biography of her father, Henry H. Meyers, March 22, 1987.