In the center of the photograph is the California Hotel. The white two story building, farthest on the right side is reported to be The Exchange Club. It was established in 1906 and still stands. The Beatty Laundry building is on the left side of the photograph. Caption: One of the two hotels Site Name: The California Hotel (Beatty, Nev.)
In 1978 Bill Snyder came Las Vegas for a heavyweight championship fight between his homeboy, Larry Holmes and Ken Norton. During that visit, he saw cranes dotting the cityscape so he returned home and proposed that the family move across country and settle in the desert. His wife, Joy, gave him a year. And as they say, the rest is history. And what am amazing history it is. In this interview, Bill Snyder talks about his life from its beginning in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he discovered the challenge of architecture first by perusing books in the library and then by hands-on construction experience. But his love of art built the foundation to this treasured craft that has allowed him to design homes, office buildings, airport terminals and the McCaw School of Mines on the campus of McCaw Elementary School in Henderson, NV. The projects that Mr. Snyder seems to prize most are those that include the imagination of children. The people who shaped his life are introduced and the impact of his military training is wonderfully expressed. His connection with young people is paramount throughout the oral history that is beautifully documented with images of many of the projects that displayed children's art in an exciting way. Bill and Joy are the parents of two sons. Dana age 36, lives with his wife Christine in Hollywood, California, and works as a voice actor best known for his role as Master Shake on the cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Their younger son, Mike age 31, owns The Krate, a clothing, music, and art shop in Santa Cruz, California, where he lives with his wife Mandy and daughter Maya. A husband, father, sports car enthusiast, runner, thinker and lover of teaching and trusting young people, Bill Snyder is a brilliant architect and manager of people. He is dyslectic and never expected a school to be named in his honor but the William E. Snyder Elementary School was dedicated in 2001 with overwhelming community support. One of his current goals is to dream an architectural project that rivals the McCaw School of Mines for his own school. I trust that you will learn to love architecture in a different and very profound way as you read this interview just as I did during my conversation with Bill.
In 1984, with the advice of his father ringing in his ears, Brad Nelson uprooted his wife and two children from their Denver home and moved them to Henderson, Nevada, where he would begin a new adventure in shaping the new master-planned community of Green Valley with Mark Fine and American Nevada Corporation (ANC). Nelson, lifelong Nebraskan and only child of his parents, arrived armed with a Bachelor's degree in landscape architecture with urban planning option, a Master's degree in urban planning, and fifteen years of planning and executive experience with the national firm of Harmon, O'Donnell and Henniger Planning Consultants. He arrived in time to plan Green Valley's first village, the Village of Silver Spring. By the time he left ANC for Lake Las Vegas in 1999, his work was done and most large parcels had been sold. As Nelson puts it, by 1999 ANC was "out of land, and I'm a land guy." Lake Las Vegas had plenty of undeveloped land, so "land guy" Nelson a chief operating officer
The collection is comprised of drawings (1965-1996) completed by American architect Gary Guy Wilson and/or his architectural firm, Gary Guy Wilson, AIA, Architect Studios and contains 613 sets of drawings from over 250 different projects. Primarily focused on the Las Vegas, Nevada area, the materials feature hand-drawn architectural drawings, ranging from preliminary sketches to construction documents, and a number of printed computer aided drawings. The drawings also contain work from a number of consultants, engineers, and other architects who collaborated on the development of the various projects. The drawings include: commercial and professional buildings of varying scales, such as convenience stores, hotels, casinos, shopping centers, and office developments; schools; military buildings at both Nellis and Indian Springs Air Force Bases; multi-family residential developments; and custom single-family homes located throughout the Southwest (United States).
Architect Thomas J. Schoeman was born in 1949 in Brooklyn, New York, and was the first of his four siblings to graduate high school and attend college. Schoeman attended Nassau Community College and then transferred to the University of New Mexico in the early 1970s, from which he graduated in 1974. After spending his first five years out of college working as an architect in New Mexico, Schoeman received a job offer from Jack Miller and Associates (later, JMA Studio) and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1979. He stayed with JMA for many years, eventually becoming partner, president, and Chief Executive Officer. While at JMA, Schoeman designed, among many other iconic Las Vegas buildings, the original UNLV Dickinson Library, the Nevada Power building, One Queensridge Place, and World Market Center as well as expansions to McCarran International Airport and the Las Vegas Convention Center. Before he retired at age 62, Schoeman negotiated the sale of JMA to Baker International, an engineering and architectural firm, for which he worked for a short time as architectural director of. He also arranged for Baker International to agree to donate many early JMA records to Special Collections at UNLV Libraries. In his retirement he designs multifamily dwellings and other buildings that will help create community and revitalize Downtown Las Vegas.
Oral history interview with Joy Rineer conducted by Claytee D. White on December 07, 2017 for the Remembering 1 October Oral History Project. In this interview, Rineer discusses her upbringing in Las Vegas, Nevada. She describes her career as an architect, designing the Resilience Center for those affected by the 1 October shooting, and the city’s response to the shooting. Later, Rineer describes helping the grief-stricken city through architecture, establishing the Leadership Las Vegas program, and organizing blood drives. Lastly, Rineer discusses the changes in Las Vegas after the tragedy.
Lee Cagely, an interior designer and professor who designed some of the most iconic hotels in Las Vegas, Nevada, was born in the Panama Canal Zone on January 31, 1951. His father Leo was a civil engineer for the Panama Canal Company and his mother Charlotte worked as a receptionist. After his father left his job in Panama, Lee spent his childhood in Dallas, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Des Moines, Iowa. He started to attend Rice University for architecture, but he chose to leave before completing his degree. He returned to college a few years later and graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in interior design in 1975. While his first California jobs were in restaurant design, he quickly moved on to airports and hotels and moved to Las Vegas in 1990 after associating with Marnell Architecture. Cagley is known for his designs in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, Ceasars Palace Atlantic City, the Mirage, and the Bellagio Resort & Casino. He is currently Chair of the Iowa State University College of Design and is principal designer for Lee Cagely Design. Here, Cagley explains the importance of keeping the various pieces of the infrastructure of a resort—including landscape architecture, architecture, interior design, all kinds of HVAC [heating, ventilation and air conditioning] concerns, housekeeping, food service, maintenance, etc.-invisible in order to maximize the visitor experience. At the same time he illustrates through several examples how resort design does not happen in a vacuum-it is instead part of a complex team that works together to create the whole. He also describes the challenges the Las Vegas resort industry finds in creating the very best visitor experience for a broad range of groups-from Millennials to their Boomer grandparents and all the generations in between.
Oral history interview with Domingo Cambeiro conducted by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White on October 18, 2016 for the Building Las Vegas Oral History Project. In this interview, Cambeiro discusses his upbringing in Havana, Cuba. He talks about his initial interests in architecture, starting his own architecture drawing service, and attending the University of Havana. Cambeiro recalls submitting a request to leave Cuba, emigrating to the United States, and arriving in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1962. Cambeiro talks about working with Las Vegas architect Julius Gabriel, obtaining his architecture license, and starting an architectural firm. Lastly, Cambeiro discusses being selected to create architectural drawings for the Thomas & Mack Center.
Oral history interviews with Martin Myron and Don Snyder conducted by Stefani Evans on November 30, 2017, December 06, 2017, and March 08, 2018 for the Building Las Vegas Oral History Project. Myron G. Martin, President and CEO, and Donald D. Snyder, Chairman of the Board of Directors, share their memories of the founding of The Smith Center for the Performing Arts. Martin recalls his upbringing in Texas and his education in music and business at Golden Gate University. He came to Las Vegas after a fifteen-year career with the Baldwin Piano Company to be the Executive Director of the Liberace Foundation. Martin describes how he became President of University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Performing Arts Center and later President of the Las Vegas Performing Arts Center Foundation in 1999. Martin and Snyder talk about how the Smith Center came to be, fund raising, the design process for the performing arts complex, and notable people and organizations that were involved. They also discuss the overall programming at the Smith Center, and who performed on opening night.