Life

He was born in Charles County, Maryland

Charles County, Maryland

Charles County is a county in the south central portion of the U.S. state of Maryland.As of 2010, the population was 146,551. Its county seat is La Plata. This county was named for Charles Calvert , third Baron Baltimore....

 in 1872, but came to Washington, DC as a child where he later established his career in architecture. Simmons received his architecture degree at the University of Maryland

University of Maryland

When the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to the University of Maryland, College Park.University of Maryland may refer to the following:...

, and later studied architecture at MIT. Over the course of his long career, Simmons worked with every major Washington, DC developer, including Harry Wardman

Harry Wardman

Harry Wardman was a real estate developer in Washington, D.C. during the early 20th century whose developments included landmark hotels, luxury apartment buildings, and many rowhouses.-Personal life:...

 and Lester Barr. He started designing and building houses in the 1890s, before he moved on to bigger commissions.

His career spanned several decades from the 1880s to the 1930s during which time he established himself as an extremely prolific architect, designing more than 280 buildings in the city. Simmons also worked with every major developer, though he appears to have had a particularly close working relationship with Lester A. Barr and later his son, John L. Barr with whom he designed some of his best known commissions. Simmons was incredibly versatile, designing a variety of building types that ranged from row houses, to fraternal clubs, to commercial and institutional buildings, though he seems to have had a proclivity for apartment buildings, having designed over 60 of them. Of particular note on his resume are his designs for the National Metropolitan Bank at 15th and G Streets NW (1905), the Elks Club

Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks

The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks is an American fraternal order and social club founded in 1868...

 at 919 H Street NW (1908, demolished); and the Fairfax Hotel (now the Ritz-Carlton) at 21st and Massachusetts Avenue NW (1921), in addition to the Wyoming Apartments

Wyoming Apartments

Wyoming Apartments is an historic apartment building, located at 2022 Columbia Road, Northwest, Washington, D.C. in the Kalorama neighborhood.-History:...

 and the Barr Building.
His earlier Hume School

Hume School

The Hume School is an 1891 former school building in the Arlington Ridge neighborhood in Arlington County, Virginia. It is the oldest school building in Arlington County It has been the home of the Arlington Historical Society since 1960...

, built in 1891, is on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

, along with the National Metropolitan Bank Building and the Wyoming Apartments.
Although he never studied at the École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...

, B. Stanley Simmons became a student of the Beaux Arts tradition and the City Beautiful Movement. While his earlier 19th-century buildings (namely speculative row houses) reflect Victorian styles of architecture, his later early 20th-century buildings are grander and more monumental structures that reflect a variety of academic styles inspired the City Beautiful movement

City Beautiful movement

The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy concerning North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of using beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. The movement, which was originally associated mainly with Chicago,...

. For instance, the now-demolished Elks Club at 919 H Street, NW, the Fairfax Hotel, now known as the Ritz at 2100 Massachusetts Avenue NW, the Northwest Savings Bank, at 1789 Columbia Road, all executed in a Classical Revival style

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

, or the Charlesfred Apartment building at 1705 P Street, N.W., designed in the Renaissance Revival vein, are all indicative of the influences of the Beaux Arts tradition. Though stylistic divergent from these more Classically rooted examples, the Barr Building is similarly characteristic of a studied and academic interpretation of the Medieval Gothic style typical of the student of the Beaux Arts tradition.