Gene Leedy, Architect

Gene Robert Leedy, born February 6, 1928, was a pioneering American modernist architect and key figure in the Sarasota School of Architecture, born in Isaban, West Virginia, to Ethyl and Cecil Leedy (he had a twin sister, Helen, who died shortly after birth), raised partly in Gainesville, Florida,

and precociously admitted to the University of Florida at 16, where he earned a Bachelor of Architecture in 1950; after early work in Sarasota with Ralph and William Zimmerman and then Paul Rudolph, he served in the U.S. Air Force, returned to open his own practice, and in 1954 moved his office to Winter Haven, the city that became the

epicenter of his career and the laboratory for his signature exposed precast concrete work—especially long-span “double-tee” systems—paired with courtyards, flat roofs, and floor-to-ceiling glass,

as seen in projects such as Winter Haven City Hall, the American National Bank, the USF President’s House, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house at UF, and numerous celebrated residences

(e.g., the Strang, Dormon, and Craney Spec Homes); selected by Architectural Record as a “Successful Young Architect” in 1965, he went on to receive the Florida Association of Architects ‘Florida Association of Architects’ Lifetime Design Achievement Award (1988),

induction into the AIA College of Fellows (1992), the University of Florida School of Architecture Outstanding Alumni Award (1993), and later recognition including AIA Florida’s Medal of Honor (2014), while also consulting for Alfred A. Yee & Associates in Honolulu

for more than 25 years and designing a major housing complex for the Malaysian government; in his personal life, he married Kathryn “Bebe” Hoge soon after graduation (one son, Robert; divorced 1958) and, in 1960, married Marjorie Frances Ingram (children Marjorie “Saffie” and Gene Ingram;

step-daughter Helen Isabel King; Marjorie died in 2010), mentoring future award-winners such as Lawrence Scarpa and Max Strang along the way; Leedy died in Winter Haven on Saturday, November 24, 2018, aged 90, and was survived by his four children—Ingram (Marissa), Saffie Farris (Jeff), Robert (Vicky), and Helen Patterson (Joel)—five grandchildren, his companion of eight years, Cassie Jacoby, and close friends, with a local celebration of life held days later.