Governmental Institutional Historic Preservation

As a Senior Designer with Smith, Hinchman and Grills, a Detroit, Michigan architectural and engineering firm, designed a city hall complex for the town of Riverview, Michigan, located south of Detroit and north of Toledo, Ohio.

The complex included city administrative offices, council chambers, courtrooms, a police station, recreational facilities, and a fire station. After the complex was designed and the construction documents completed, the new city council decided to halt construction except for the fire station, which had already been completed.

Harvey Amster, in the 1990’s, owned a block of commercial buildings originally built in the early 1900’s and that formed the heart of the small, developing town of South Miami. The Amster block was located on the main road from Miami to points south, which was paralleled by the Florida East Coast Railroad tracks. The train station for the area was directly across the tracks from a small cluster of buildings, one of which was the post office. That building is the corner building that Chael, Cooper, and Associates refurbished and renovated, installing hurricane-impact windows to maintain the scale and character of the original historic structure.

DeSoto Fountain

Chael, Cooper and Associates was commissioned to provide Record Drawings of DeSoto Fountain in Coral Gables, Florida. The fountain was built in 1925 as part of George Merrick's original design for Coral Gables. It is a Neobaroque style of French architecture. The fountain anchors a traffic circle that connects the streets of Seville, Granada, and DeSoto.

In September 1998, Hurricane Georges damaged the San Carlos Institute located in the Historic District of Key West, Florida. This historic building, designed in 1924 by renowned Cuban architect Francisco Centurión, commemorates the site where, in 1871, José Martí united Cuban exiles in their efforts to free Cuba from Spanish rule.

At that time, the building was used as a museum/art gallery, a library of Cuban historical memorabilia, an active theater, and a school.

After the hurricane, our architectural firm, Chael, Cooper, and Associates, was hired to manage the restoration. We were selected not only for our historic preservation background but also for our extensive hurricane repair and restoration work from previous storms, including Hurricane Andrew.

The original doors were essential to the auditorium's functioning, which was built 50 years before air conditioning was in practice. The doors were opened wide during performances to allow the natural sea breezes of Key West to flow through the audience for comfort.

The original 1924 auditorium doors were damaged and replaced sometime in the 1940’s with doors that were improperly designed for this space. They were ill-fitting and let rain blow into the auditorium even on light rain. We researched the old photographs and sketches of the original doors and had these replicated using the same construction techniques of the 1920’s.

In 1975, Lee Grant, owner of Grant Center, approached me to design a 100-bed pediatric psychiatric hospital in South Miami-Dade County, Florida. This was envisioned as the largest residential, children’s psychiatric facility south of Atlanta, Georgia.

The facility was constructed with volunteer and donated labor and materials. The basic structure consists of six precast, factory-made duplex housing units, combined with all the supporting walls, with precast concrete Ts for the roof.

The complex comprises an auditorium, classrooms, dormitories for boys and girls, medical offices and treatment areas, a pool, administrative offices, a dining room, and a kitchen. Large colorful supergraphics were used throughout the complex to enliven the atmosphere.

The site is a twenty-acre lot with deep setbacks that provides space for athletic activities and some rudimentary farming.

The site was built with donated air conditioners, free site work provided by the local Sea Bees organization, and labor from local plumbers and electricians. The kitchen was purchased from the US Supply Depot in Stark, Florida, and all architectural and engineering services were provided pro Bono. On completion, the project was built for an amazing $3.80 per square foot. The project was later sold to HCA.

Rollins College entry gates straddle the main entry road into the campus. The gates were designed to be a strong statement of the definition of campus life. After the gates were created on paper, the College administrator requested that we have a full-sized model of the gates built so they could experience and approve all the design components. A model-making firm located in Disney Park was commissioned to create the mock-up. The College president and others had the opportunity to experience the scale and feeling of the final product.

Rollins College Administrative Building, Winter Park, Florida

After the Rollins College entry gates were completed, the College administration awarded Chael. Cooper and Associates, the commission of designing an administrative facility that would be adjacent to the entry gates and house many of the activities for campus governance, and the introduction of visitors and future students to the campus