Lionel Pries

Reading up on some Disney animators and writers.

Ken Anderson, one of the credited screenwriters for The Rescuers, Aristocats, The Jungle Book, and Cinderella, was (wikipedia tells me) “particularly influenced” by his University of Washington architecture professor, Lionel Pries.

Lionel Pries designed the Andalucia building in Santa Barbara:

Here’s a house he designed for himself:

“He used affordable modern materials — concrete, concrete block and cement-asbestos board.”

Here’s another house Pries designed, in the Laurelhurst neighborhood of Seattle:

Wikipedia:

Pries was gay, but deeply closeted in the University of Washington community. He anticipated teaching at least until he reached retirement age, but was forced to resign his university position in 1958 after he was picked up in a vice sting in Los Angeles. The reason for Pries’s abrupt departure from the university was concealed at the time.

Pries worked as a drafter until he was able to retire in 1964, then lived quietly until his death in 1968.

Lionel Pries:

(Pries photo is credited to Dorothy Conway and the Pries Collection, Special Collection, UW Libraries, Pries house photo to Charles R. Pierson from the same collection, Laurelhurst house photo “courtesy Max and Helen Gurvitch, and I got them all from this Seattle Times article by Laurence Kriesman.)