Blaine Drake

Blaine Drake was born in Ogden, Utah on September 10, 1911. After graduating from high school in Ogden he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Cal, he reportedly attended a lecture by Frank Lloyd Wright, in 1932, and was inspired to pursue an apprenticeship with the architect.

From a 1992, ASU Insights article; “In 1932, Drake's third year at Berkeley, Wright came to deliver a lecture. 'The old fuddy-duddies weren't interested in him at all,' said Drake of his professors. A San Francisco interior decorator threw a reception for Wright, which Drake and a few other students attended sans invitation. Wright, then in his late 60s, walked up to Drake and said, 'This looks like somebody my age,' Drake said. He quickly wrangled an invitation to work with Wright. "He said, come ahead. We need young fellows.”

Prior to graduating with a degree, he left Cal with friends Lucretia Nelson and Sim Bruce Richards for Wisconsin to join a small group of new apprentices in Wright's Taliesin Fellowship in 1934.

In 1936, he married fellow apprentice Hulda Brierly (who had come to Taliesin West in 1935) “in a romantic quasi-tribal Taliesin wedding, returning from their ceremony to find their room cleaned and strewn with plum blossoms.” They left Taliesin in 1941 for Albuquerque, New Mexico where Blaine worked for an engineering company. The family returned to the Phoenix area (where they had been with Wright) in 1943 when he accepted a job with Goodyear Aircraft.

Drake established his own architectural practice in Phoenix in 1945 and focused on residential architecture – though he designed a number of office buildings, medical facilities, apartment buildings, and churches during his career. Receiving national and international recognition for his work. Drake retired in 1985, donated key components of his archive to ASU in 1992, and died in ’93.

Drake designed two homes for Bruce and Beatrice Folsom in Point Loma after they left Maricopa, Arizona. His college roommate, Sim Bruce Richards, later designed and built a home (in 1967) at the Lucinda Street address. It is unclear how college roommates and fellow Taliesin apprentices knew the Folsoms and each designed projects for them.

Partial List of San Diego Projects

Residence for Mrs. & Mrs. Bruce Folsom (ca. 1950)
740 Albion Street, Point Loma
*Attribution by Modern San Diego based on reviewing drawings held in the Blaine Drake Collection at the Arizona State University Design and the Arts Library Special Collections.

Residence for Mr. & Mrs. Bruce Folsom (circa 1958)
3208 Lucinda Street, Point Loma
*Presumed not built; at this address Sim Bruce Richards designed a home in 1967 for the couple. Attribution by Modern San Diego based on reviewing drawings held in the Blaine Drake Collection at the Arizona State University Design and the Arts Library Special Collections.