Percy Pamorrow Turner was an American architect who, in the 1920s-1950s practiced in Baltimore Maryland, Houston, Texas, Orlando, Florida and Miami, Florida.

Early years

Turner was born on December 28, 1891 in Frederick County, Virginia, the son of Leonidas (Lonnie) Grant Turner and Amelia Archer. They were leading citizens of Baltimore, listed in the city’s social register.

Architectural career

Turner was engaged in the United States Air Service toward the end of World War I.

Turner's father was in the real estate business in Baltimore, interested in the development of suburban property. Turner and his brother Robert joined with their father in this enterprise in the period around 1920. In 1922, the Turner family created a suburb called “The Pines on the Severn” in Arnold, Maryland, which continues today as a noted historic suburb along the Severn River north of Annapolis.

On December 18, 1928 in Temple, Texas, Turner married Temple native Marie Christine Robertson Bailiff, the daughter of Huling Robertson and Mary Clarke; thereafter she seldom used her first name but went by Christine Robertson Turner. After their wedding, they made their home in Houston, Texas where Turner was a practicing architect and a member of the AIA. Their children included Percy P. Turner, Jr.

By 1926, the Turners had relocated to Orlando, Florida, where Turner’s office was located at 19 Court Street. In Orlando, Turner specialized in residential architecture. An example of his work stands at 219 Phillips Place in the Lake Copeland Historic District. Built in 1926, this is a finely preserved interpretation of the New England Colonial Revival style. It has a very wide board siding which is quite unusual for Orlando, and an unusual red slate roof. It also has fluted Doric columns supporting the entry pediment. Turner's was one of only 10 architectural firms listed in 1926, the others including: Ryan and Roberts (Ida Annah Ryan

Ida Annah Ryan

Ida Annah Ryan was a pioneering United States woman architect. She was born on November 4, 1873 at Waltham, MA, one of five children of Albert Morse Ryan and Carrie S. Jameson. Albert Morse Ryan was a Waltham city employee and historian who also ran a milk business. She graduated from the Waltham...

 and Isabel Roberts

Isabel Roberts

Isabel Roberts was a Prairie School figure, member of the architectural design team in the Oak Park Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright and partner with Ida Annah Ryan in the Orlando, Florida architecture firm, “Ryan and Roberts”. It is fair to say that Roberts is an under-appreciated member of Wright’s...

), Frank L. Bodine

Frank L. Bodine

Frank Lee Bodine was an American architect who practiced in Asbury Park, New Jersey and in Orlando, Florida in the first four decades of the twentieth century....

, Fred E. Field, David Hyer

David Hyer

David Burns Hyer was an American architect who practiced in Charleston, South Carolina and Orlando, Florida during the first half of the twentieth century, designing civic buildings in the Neoclassical Revival and Mediterranean Revival styles.-Biography:...

, Murry S. King

Murry S. King

Murry S. King was Florida's first registered architect, a noted American architect with a successful practice in Orlando, Florida, in the 1910s and 1920s....

, George E. Krug

George E. Krug

George Edward Krug was an American architect who practiced in Greater New York City , Sao Paulo, Brazil and Orlando, Florida....

, Howard M. Reynolds

Howard M. Reynolds

Howard Montalbert Reynolds, Sr. was an American architect practicing in Orlando, Florida in the 1920s. He designed gracefully proportioned, notable public buildings in the prevailing fashionable styles of the 1920s, including Mediterranean Revival, Colonial Revival, Spanish Colonial, Egyptian...

 and Frederick H. Trimble

Frederick H. Trimble

Frederick H. Trimble was an American architect practicing in Central Florida from the early 1900s through the 1920s, working in the Colonial Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival and Prairie Style....

. And one of 12 firms so listed in Orlando in 1927, which included Maurice E. Kressly

Maurice E. Kressly

Maurice E. Kressly was an American architect practicing in Pennsylvania and central Florida in the middle years of the twentieth century. Kressly was well known as a school architect in both states, as well as for designing romantic Mediterranean Revival and Tudor Revival residences in the...

.

Following the Florida land bust, the Turners relocated to Texas where they lived in San Antonio until mid 1936 when they returned to Florida, settling in Miami. Turner’s architectural style had changed with the times. Among his work in Miami was 1000 71st Street, Normandy in the Isles Historic District (circa 1935) with Art Moderne radiused corners, chevron details, and raised stucco banding.

Later years

Turner continued to practice architecture in Miami into the mid-1950s. He died in North Miami in 1958.