James Gamble Rogers II was born on January 24, 1901 in Chicago. The Rogers family lived in a suburb of Winnetka until Rogers Father, John Arthur Rogers, became ill and the family moved to Dayton Beach. It was in Daytona Where John Rogers would establish his Architecture Business that James Gamble Rogers II would eventually join. Gamble Rogers attended his final two years of high school at Daytona Beach High School. Upon graduation, he applied to Dartmouth College, but was not admitted immediate admission. The College had never heard of Daytona Beach High School and requested proof of their accreditation. After a few years working at Daytona Merchants Bank, Gamble Rogers II was admitted to Dartmouth and began his college education there in 1921.
Rogers would not complete his degree from Dartmouth. During his junior year in college his father suffered another heart attack and James had to return to his home in Daytona Beach. Upon returning James Gamble Rogers II took a position in his fathers Architecture firm in Daytona Beach. A few of JGR’s drawings in the collection are from his time in the firm. In these early years, Gamble Rogers was not an architect and had his father and others in the firm sign off and make corrections to his designs. He would recieve his licence from the Florida Board of Architects, licence number 124, in 1935
In 1928 Gamble Rogers opened a branch of his fathers company in Winter Park. This community connected to Rogers because of the many Chicago ties that existed within it. After his father’s death in 1934, James Gamble Rogers II closed down the office in Daytona Beach and began his career as an Architect in the city he connected with, Winter Park. He worked alongside David B, Hayer for the first year until Hayer’s moved to Charleston, South Carolina. After that point, James Gamble Rogers worked in his own firm that would change the landscape of Winter Park and central Florida.
For more information on some of the buildings he constructed see the Private Residence and Commercial Buildings.
Bibliography
- McClane, Patrick and Deborah McClane. The Architecture of James Gamble Rogers II In Winter Park, Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004.
- “James Gamble Rogers II Dies Noted Architect Designed Homes, Public Buildings,” Orlando Sentinel, October 31, 1990.