REST IN PEACE: William "Bill" Slatton (1933-2024)

Bill Slatton passed away on July 24, 2024 at the age of 91. Recognized for his work alongside architect Frank Lloyd Wright, in the 1950s, he was so much more than that simple fact implies.

Born on June 6, 1933 in Texon, Texas (named after the Texon Oil and Land Company), little “Dugan” rode his bicycle along the railroad tracks amidst the oil rigs that dotted the landscape, worked at the ice house, in Big Lake, and eventually learned to weld steel for the local petroleum industry.

As a young man, on the oil derricks, Bill Slatton honed his welding craft, a skill he initially learned as a hobbyist building a dune buggy for himself. Following high school, Bill attended Georgia Tech. After one year, out of money, and following his father’s passing, he moved to California with his mother. Bill joined the U.S. Army and spent 2.5 years at Fort Bragg in North Carolina as a paratrooper. At Fort Bragg’s Enlisted Men's Club he met (and fell in love with) Anne Barbrey who was working at the venue shortly after she had finished college at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1955.

Inspired by a high school drafting class, and his single year attending Georgia Tech’s architecture program, Bill continued to think about his prospects as a designer. Alongside his Army buddy Dick Bollaert, they enlisted in the Taliesin apprentice program run by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1956. Dick’s grandfather reportedly worked as an engineer for Mr. Wright in Chicago so his mom wrote Wright a letter stating that the two boys wanted to study with him. On August 20, 1956, Slatton sent Wright his fellowship application and $200 offering to arrive between August 30 and September 16.

“I was married in North Carolina the summer before I went to Mr. Wright’s. Anne, was pregnant so she stayed with my mother in California. While I was the Wrights’ ‘family server,’ Mrs. Wright mentioned that they had received a telegram saying my baby was born…. I recall arriving in October, 1956 and Anne joined me several months later,” Slatton would remember. “We had a private apartment in the farmer’s cottage midway between Taliesin and the private homes. Anne wasn’t entirely comfortable during her stay…she had a baby in March and was tired during her recovery…so she left to stay with her parents again…but then she spent the summer with us (as Dick and I rebuilt the drafting room)…,” Slatton continued. Anne and Bill lived in a canvas structure with baby Gabriel amidst the tarantulas, scorpions, locusts and snakes joining them daily.

His first days with Wright were eventful. “I arrived, on the GI Bill, on a Saturday afternoon. At my first Sunday morning breakfast, someone came up to me and told me that Mr. Wright wanted to speak with me… The night before, Tom Olsen’s car battery had fallen out so I welded it up for him. Tom told Mr. Wright about my welding abilities… and Mrs. Wright was asking for a roof up over their theater pavilion… so Mr. Wright asked me to weld up the theater roof… building the steel roof for the big pavilion was my job for the first 4 months I was at Taliesin. Mr. Wright wanted it to look ‘light and floating,’ Following that, he had me build a model for a wedding chapel for a big hotel in Oakland… and I couldn’t get it right. Mr. Wright asked me to build the model as if I was welding it up… Then there was the time I was asked to weld up a bunch tables for Easter. I took apart many of the roofs at Taliesin and rebuilt them in steel. As you walk to the office at Taliesin, there’s a small fountain, it used to be turned the other way and made a loud noise… Mr. Wright asked me to rebuild the fountain and to surprise him when he returned from making a speech in Tucson. I ended up turning it around and cutting holes in the boiler… much to the delight of Mr. Wright when he arrived back. When Mr. Wright died I helped pack up the trucks as they left for Wisconsin.”

“The highlight of my life was being at Taliesin for two and a half years… There were several of us that really worked hard while we were there… John Rattenbury, who was at Taliesin for his entire career, said “…of all the people who have been here, I can name only a handful of folks that really meant something…” Alongside John, doing the electrical work, we worked through the night all the time… we were working day and night to keep ahead of the other workers,” recalled Slatton.

Anne and Bill departed Taliesin, in 1959, and gave birth to Tasha in North Carolina. When they returned for Wright’s funeral, Tasha slept in a cradle of hay above the cow barn.

Beyond building and maintaining a number of projects at Taliesin West, in Scottsdale, during his time with Wright, Bill worked on the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1956), and Marin County Civic Center (1957), as well as the Robert H. Sunday House (1959). He later recalled, “the Sunday House was my first drafting job under Jack Howe.”

The Slatton family traveled to San Diego where Bill initially found work in architect Harold Abrams’ office in 1959. Daughter Tara was born in 1960 and the family moved into a rental on Brighton Court in Ocean Beach.

Among his many accomplishments across a vast career, Bill's collaboration with artist James Hubbell and architect Kendrick Bangs Kellogg brought the inimitable Onion House (in Kona, Hawaii) to life in the early 1960s. Alongside the Kellogg and Hubbell families, the Slattons moved to Kona during the construction period. “The Onion House was like being back at Taliesin… was probably one of the highlights of our lives, we had a lot of fun doing it. Really enjoyed it. We didn't say much to each other during the day. We just kind of did not need to talk to each other. We just did what each other were [supposed to be] doing,” recalled Slatton.

The family returned to the San Diego suburb of Clairemont and Bill to offices of local architects including Loch Crane, Homer Delawie, Frederick Liebhardt, William Lumpkins, Bill Moises, Bob Rosenthal, Lloyd Ruocco, and Leonard Veitzer – in various capacities. Crane and Liebhardt, too, were Wright alums that relocated to the San Diego area.

The Slattons bought their first house at 1030 Old Chase Avenue in El Cajon where Bill taught his children how to use power tools and trained them on a number of tasks including building the McWhorter House light fixtures as well as furniture for their own home.

In the late 1960s Anne and Bill divorced – Bill moved out and lived in Mission Valley – designed The Family School and went to work at Foodmaker. For the latter, he traveled the country serving the company as its in-house building inspector for Jack in the Box restaurants across the U.S.

Bill retired during the 1990s and left San Diego County for Clarkdale, Arizona with his second wife Carolyn. A licensed architect, Slatton worked closely with Fred Geoffrey Ball, of GB Designs Architectural, on a number of projects during the last decade of his life.

"Bill's Poem" by Fred Geoffrey Ball:

William Slatton is survived by his first wife Anne Slatton Davis of La Mesa; and his second wife Carolyn Martin Slatton of Clarkdale, Arizona; son William Gabriel and wife Norma Slatton of Clinton, North Carolina; daughter Tasha Oliver Slatton of Scottsdale, Arizona; daughter Tara Slatton and husband Homero Cardenas of La Mesa; Clifford Trenton Slatton and wife Nancy Slatton of Lake Balboa, California in addition a number of stepchildren, grandchildren and great (step) grandchildren. He was pre-deceased by his father “Mr. Slatton”, his mother Birdie Enola Slatton and brother Tom.

You can watch Bill Slatton and I chat at DG Wills in La Jolla HERE and HERE.