PEORIA MAGAZINE October 2022

ahead of his time, building Peoria’s first high-rise condominiumbuilding, which still stands at 4444 N. Knoxville Ave. Among his most notable works is the Motherhouse near Germantown Hills, built in a pastoral setting of some 40 acres in the late 1960s as the novitiate for the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis. His other designs include the Demanes Interiors building on Knoxville, the Ameren/CILCO Headquarters on Liberty Street with its blue panels, downtown YMCA, now Dream Center; Central Park Pool and the former Varsity Theater. After working with a couple of local architectural firms, Foley wanted to get “back into the trenches” of design and formed the firmApace (Associated Professional Architects and Consulting Engineers) with two fellow modernist designers. ‘FOLEY WAS THE GRANDPA I NEVER HAD, AND A MENTOR TO MANY YOUNG ARCHITECTS’ Architect Mark Misselhorn worked with Foley for 30 years and calls him “the grandpa I never had and a mentor to many young architects. “He was a really great guy and a cool guy. Even into his 90s he was tooling around Peoria in his purple MG,” Misselhorn said. Foley did hundreds of projects, said Misselhorn, including numerous churches, schools and residences, “but his pride and joy was theMotherhouse.” A member of Westminster Presbyte rian Church, Foley was a Sunday School teacher, elder, and also a local Boy Scout leader. He died in 2013 at the age of 100. Photo credits: Reeves and Baillie - publication “Notable Men of theWest”. Hewitt - Local History Collection at the Peoria Public Library — Architect, Mark Misselhorn

Motherhouse — architect, Cletis Foley Photo provided by KDB Group

Over the years, it sat empty for long stretches, with more than one plan to rehabilitate the theater to its former glory. The Madison Preservation Association recently took ownership of the building with ambitions to do just that. Like most architects of his time, Klein worked in all kinds of styles, said Hartneck. He designed many banks in small towns throughout central Illinois, as well as a lot of theaters. Besides the Madison, the self-taught Klein also envisioned Peoria’s Apollo Theater and the Coronado Theatre in Rockford. “In 1982 or ’83, I was able to get into an office of Frederick Klein’s at Main and Jefferson, where Jay Janssen’s law office now stands,” saidHartneck. “Apparently, during the Depression, Klein had been unable to pay his office rent at one time and the landlord locked him out. The office had been abandoned for 50 years, since the 1930s. We were told to take whatever we could.” Hartneck was able to salvage presentation drawings, periodicals, photographs and receipt books. Some of Klein’s other local projects include Trinity Lutheran Church, Packard Plaza, Franklin School and PeoriaHighSchool, aswell as residences. Another popular local architectural firm from the same era was Hewitt and Emerson. “For a while they were the preeminent firm in town,” said Hartneck. “Like other architects, they did residential work, schools and banks.” Their larger projects included the Peoria Life Building (which became Commerce Bank, now called 416 Main),

Commercial National Bank (now PNC Bank), and the Interurban Railroad Terminal, which later become the Peoria Police headquarters. They were also the local consulting architects on the Pere Marquette Hotel. Mid-Century Modern design is abundant in Peoria and two of the most notable local practitioners were Richard Doyle and Cletis Foley. Doyle’s first vocation was music. As a teenager from Wheaton, he had his own band. In 1939 he enlisted in the service, where he was named an Air Force band leader. After World War II, Doyle studied architecture under the GI Bill. It is perhaps only fitting that Doyle’s own favorite design, the Kelly Avenue Library in Peoria Heights, has been turned into a performing arts center, the Betty Jayne Brimmer Center for the Performing Arts. Doyle, in collaboration with local philanthropist Bill Rutherford, designed Tower Park in Peoria Heights. Doyle’s other local contributions include Peoria Heights Village Hall and that community’s Congregational Church. Doyle was a man at one with his design principles. Modernism is seen as an optimistic, forward-thinking design movement. He practiced his optimism in his community, serving as architect for the Peoria Heights school district and then as its board president. Doyle died in 2006. Cletis Roy Foley was another Peoria architect who believed in the transformative power of Mid-Century Modern design. He also was a man

Linda Smith Brown is a 37 year veteran of the newspaper industry, retiring as publisher of TimesNewspapers in the Peoria area

OCTOBER 2022 PEORIA MAGAZINE 55