It’s a good thing for the state’s skylines that Charley Penix didn’t cut it as a lawyer.
Penix, CEO of Cromwell Architects Engineers, has been building and designing things since he was a boy playing at nearby home construction sites with his friends.
“We scavenged pieces of 2×4’s for our forts and treehouses,” Penix says. “There was a chalkboard in our den and I was always drawing imaginary house plans.”
Even as a youngster Penix had an appreciation for the build of his family’s mid-century home as well as the houses of family friends who also happened to be faculty members of the University of Arkansas School of Architecture.
His own parents were lawyers, and Penix took a one-semester stab at law school himself, but on the way to classes he would walk by the school of architecture, glance through the windows and feel a pang of jealousy at the sight of the students making models and working at their drawing boards.
“Finally I came out. ‘There’s a closet architect in here!’ ” Penix, 60, says. “So off to architecture school I went. It was the best decision I ever made. I’m so fortunate. I really love what I do and I think that’s a privilege that a lot of people don’t share.”
Penix attended Georgetown University before embracing his true love and graduating the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture.
In Penix’s 32 years at Cromwell, the firm has designed projects ranging from the Rockefeller Cancer Institute at UAMS to the Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center to a restoration of the Capital Hotel as well as international projects like healthcare facilities in Germany and military base commissaries.
“We’ve designed more commissaries than any firm in the world,” Penix says. “The problem with listing projects is that there are so many more wonderful ones that I’ll fail to mention, and they are all wonderful, no matter how small and seemingly minor.”
A building particularly close to Penix’s heart these days is at 615 Main Street in Little Rock, two doors down from the Arkansas Repertory Theatre. The building will take its place as part of the Main Street renaissance but stands unique in that it was designed by Charles Thompson, and its renovation is part of a concerted effort by Cromwell — celebrating its 130th anniversary — to preserve the legendary architect’s legacy.
“He really is the guy who took and did an amazing amount of work,” Penix says of Thompson. “It’s everywhere. He was prolific.”
Back In Time
Thompson, who died in 1959, joined the firm begun by B.J. Bartlett in 1886, one year after its founding. The two formed a partnership and set up shop on Markham Street in Little Rock, just across the street from where Cromwell’s offices are located today.
Bartlett departed to follow a project to Mississippi in 1890, leaving the firm to Thompson, just 21 at the time. In the years that followed, until his retirement in 1938, Thompson and his partners helped give 20th Century Arkansas its look, designing courthouses, churches and schools, as well as one of the state’s first gas stations in 1924.
In all, Thompson was responsible for more than 800 projects in Pulaski County alone, with examples of his work in five states, and those, Penix points out, are only the documented projects.
Along the way Thompson and the firm, which took its current name in 2000, showed an ability to adapt with changing styles. Whether it was the Queen Anne style of home popular at the beginning of Cromwell’s career or Art Deco, Thompson was able to keep his work in vogue.
Some of Thompson’s best-known works are the Washington County Courthouse in Fayetteville, Little Rock City Hall and the original El Dorado High School. Some of his more iconic homes are the Monumental style Peter Hotze House in Little Rock or the Monumental, Neo-Classical Marlsgate Plantation in Scott.
Both the Majestic and Park Hotels in Hot Springs were Thompson projects, along with the city’s Alhambra and Rector bathhouses.
Some of Thompson’s buildings have served different purposes through the years. The Federal Reserve Bank is now the home of eStem’s high school while the Carnall Hall Women’s Dormitory in Fayetteville is now the Inn at Carnall Hall.
While 137 of Thompson’s structures are on the National Register of Historic Places, not all of his work has had the same staying power as the iconic structures. Across the state his buildings are crumbling, Penix says, and are either in danger of demolition (if not already torn down) or simply falling apart.
“They’re dying. They’re disappearing. They’re falling apart,” he says. “They’re getting to a point they’re not salvageable.”
Therefore the Main Street project, which will be a mixed-use commercial and residential structure, looms in importance.
Penix notes that revamping old buildings carries several hidden challenges, like bringing old wiring or plumbing up to code. But such projects also turn up buried treasure in the form of old facades hidden behind newer fronts, as is the case with the building on Main Street.
While bigger cities sometimes experience revivals, like the one that is bringing old buildings to life in downtown Little Rock, Penix says it is more of a challenge, and becomes more important, saving such buildings in more economically challenged communities.
“They’re different types of buildings that tell us about our history that will never come back if we don’t save them,” Penix says.
Penix notes the efforts of the website “Abandoned Arkansas” in raising awareness of not just Thompson’s classic buildings but historic structures in general. Tying into that movement, Cromwell is planning, as part of its anniversary celebration, a photo exhibit that will include (but not be limited to) Thompson’s architecture at the Old State House Museum beginning Nov. 12.
“The Abandoned Arkansas group has done a great job of bringing attention to this crisis and hopefully this will help the cause of adaptive preservation,” Penix says.
Laying Plans
Always adventurous, Penix, who at age 13 once “borrowed” his family’s car for a joyride with a friend when his parents were out of town, enjoys diving into multiple aspects of a project while also dealing with the administrative side of things at Cromwell.
“That really fits my personality very well,” Penix says. “Most people would say I’m probably a multi-tasker. I’m ADD, undiagnosed. Sort of all over the place.”
He interviews prospective clients, maintains relationships with existing clients, handles employee issues and, sooner or later, gets around to designing something.
“Occasionally I do get to play architect,” Penix says.
But while Penix makes the work sound hectic, he points out that a project usually comes together over a period of a few years and is the result of careful longterm planning.
“Buildings is a small part of what an architect does, and engineers.,” Penix says.
First a firm has to get the job, which means assessing prospective clients’ needs.
“Advise clients and help them make decisions that may or may not lead to a new building,” Penix says.
Penix says a young architect must be patient and learn there is always a strong probability his firm may not get the job.
“If there are five of you interviewing [for] a job you have a 20 percent chance” he says.
Once secured, a project goes through the schematic design phase, which includes determining the needs of the job, the needs of the client, rough budget and getting an overall handle on the concept.
Then comes the design development phase in which decisions are made on a building’s systems and final designs are settled. Then comes the construction document phase in which, Penix says, a firm will “really produce that.” He points to a huge roll of building plans in a corner of his office, proving the old image of an architect with a roll of blueprints under his arm is more reality than cliche.
“Then you price it,” Penix said of the construction bidding process.
And when all that’s done?
“Then you build it,” Penix says.
Penix says the importance of the early, preliminary work can’t be overstated. The last thing an architect wants is to find out late in the building process that doors are in the wrong place or conduits don’t fit where they’re supposed to.
“If you’re a good architect you do a good job on the front end matching the scope with the project,” Penix says.
Cromwell has offices in Little Rock, Jonesboro and Fayetteville, North Carolina, and a small satellite office in Germany. It’s a team effort, Penix says, noting the unfairness of one or two people earning a design award for a project involving hundreds.
“We have kind of a rule around here; you don’t say ‘I’ in anything,” Penix says. “It’s really a team sport.”
In that regard, the efforts of Penix and Cromwell to preserve and restore old buildings give a voice not just to Charles Thompson, but all the anonymous designers, planners and builders of the past, with the added benefit of creating attractive, functional spaces for the residents of the future.
“In general, with few exceptions, saving old buildings is a noble undertaking,” Penix says. “We preserve a bit of our culture and history, we act responsibly and sustainably by reusing something that is already there, we create wonderful new spaces with proportions and ambience that would be economically unfeasible to recreate in a new structure.”