A Race to Splendor (17 page)

He’d missed her too, and her look of joy made him suddenly want to lower his head to her lap and weep like a child. Shocked by this infantile reaction, he merely bowed with exaggerated formality.

“Hasta luego, Señora.”

Chapter 14

Piles of lumber, heaps of gravel and sand, and lengths of newly forged steel girders littered the grounds of the burnt-out Fairmont Hotel. As was typical for June, marine moisture poured through the straits of the Golden Gate, sucked in by another scorching day in California’s Central Valley, fifty miles to the east. Amelia tried to remember the name of the wag who said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.”

He wasn’t joking.

With a scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, she peered through the morning’s mist at workers putting the finishing touches on seven levels of scaffolding—six stories, plus a seventh tier for access to the roof, which this day was shrouded in fog. The Fairmont’s sooty granite and terra-cotta shell was nearly all that remained of the monument to the
beaux-arts
style.

For days now, Amelia, Ira Hoover, and Julia Morgan spent hours in a drafty shed erected on a corner of the property, plotting their plan of action for both hotels. They poured over the drawings created by the Fairmont’s original architect, James Reid, and his businessman-brother, Merritt. Word around town was that the pair weren’t interested in rebuilding a hotel they had so recently completed. The truth was, they had many other lucrative and challenging projects in post-quake San Francisco.

When the Fairmont’s current owners—another set of brothers, Herbert and Hartland Law—learned that their second-choice architect, the famed Stanford White, had been murdered, they’d turned to the Morgan firm as their
third
choice for the restoration job.

Now duly anointed by her employers as both architect
and
construction site supervisor on the Fairmont job, Morgan outlined what came next.

“Thirty-seven columns in this building have buckled and a number of floors have dropped at least seven feet. As we excavate the debris, we must shore up each section of the remaining walls in turn, to prevent the building’s collapse.” She wagged her finger sternly at her entire staff, adding, “Safety for the workers is as important as speed. We have an enormous job ahead of us, everyone.”

Amelia wondered if Dick Spitz, the construction supervisor J.D. Thayer had hired to oversee construction at the Bay View Hotel, was as conscientious about the welfare of his workers. Thayer had employed someone who generally wore a scowl, whatever the weather. Despite J.D.’s sleeping at the Fairmont most nights, the de facto owner of the smaller hotel was rarely seen. At dawn’s light, he departed from his borrowed basement room, located a few doors down the corridor from Amelia’s, and went straight to the Bay View construction site, exhorting the workers to speedily erect the hotel’s framing. His evenings were a mystery to Amelia and he apparently returned in the wee hours to grab a few hours’ sleep long after everyone else had retired.

Julia instructed Amelia to divide her time between the two projects. On a Monday, the younger architect arrived at Taylor and Jackson with a revised set of drawings for the Bay View’s roofline. Immediately, something caught her attention on the ground floor of the construction site where workers appeared ready to begin pounding nails into two-by-fours to raise the framing for the second floor.

“
That framing crew you hired isn’t mitering the corners properly!” she announced to J.D.

She insisted that he climb the scaffolding encasing the project so she could show him the flaws first hand.

“Just look at this!” she exclaimed, a breeze ruffling her hair. “The southeast corner is dangerously out of plumb. You
must
make the site supervisor tell them to rip it out and do it correctly, or your building will pitch down Jackson Street—with or without another earthquake!”

J.D. squinted in the direction she was pointing. “Can’t be off by much,” he said doubtfully.

“Just wait until they reach the top floor! I promise you that you’ll notice it
then
.”

It disturbed her to discover that J.D. appeared willing to overlook such mistakes in order to get a task accomplished, while Amelia, an echo of her employer Miss Morgan, constantly argued that
nothing
was accomplished if it wasn’t done right.

“Look, Mr. Thayer, these problems of shoddy work will only get worse as construction progresses.” She pointed toward a gigantic load of redwood delivered by four horse-drawn carts marked K
EMP
L
UMBER,
M
ILL
V
ALLEY
. “I thought you said you wanted nothing to do with Ezra Kemp.”

“Unfortunately, he’s the only source in the Bay Area capable of delivering the amount of lumber I need,” he said, adding, “and he knows it.”

“Well, be that as it may, the people you have working for you—whom I’m probably correct in assuming you hired through Ezra Kemp—aren’t following our instructions properly or watched over in the way they should be by either the site supervisor or the foreman.” In an effort to staff both projects quickly, Morgan had acquiesced to her client’s hiring decisions. Amelia added, “Can’t you at least order that there be
no
drinking of spirits during working hours? I think that alone would help the situation.”

J.D. acknowledged he’d hired his crew through Kemp, nodding wearily. “I’ve told Dick Spitz to tell the men I’ve forbidden spirits on the site—and I’ll say it again—but a bigger problem is that the chaps are stealing lumber and nails from here as they leave work every day, and then reselling their booty down the street!”

Amelia stared at him, appalled. “Then, why don’t you just discharge this whole lot?” she demanded. “There’re scores of people whose businesses were lost who are now desperately looking for work.”

J.D. arched an eyebrow. “Were there carpenters’ unions in France, Miss Bradshaw? Were there bullyboys who could shut down a construction site with a wink from the mayor of Paris?”

“I was attending architecture school there, not working at construction sites,” she replied.

“Ah… well, then… you may be adept at drawing pretty pictures, but I venture to say you learned little in France about the way buildings get built in America.”

“And I venture to say that you and Ezra Kemp learned very little from the disaster we three barely survived last April eighteenth!” she shot back, stung by Thayer’s attempt to belittle her observations of his building crew’s shoddy work. “And now you blithely condone the same substandard workmanship. I just don’t understand how you could allow such a thing to happen again!”

J.D.’s faintly mocking expression sobered instantly.

“I know there are problems, Miss Bradshaw, and I will try, in future—”

But Amelia was unable to rein in a sense of frustration and anger that had started to boil in her veins. “If your club had been properly built in the first place, it wouldn’t have collapsed and brought the rest of the Bay View Hotel down with it. At least
then
my father and Ling Lee might not have—”

Their glances locked and Amelia’s unfinished sentence ballooned between them
: they might not have died.

J.D.’s gaze took on a closed, shuttered look.

“Oh never mind!” Amelia muttered, wishing she could risk climbing down from the rickety scaffolding without waiting for a hand from her employer. Instead, she turned her head and gazed at the panorama of the bay and continued to fume.

Obviously, Ezra Kemp was more deeply involved in the reconstruction of the Bay View than Amelia had ever suspected—which could only mean trouble ahead.

And to think that she’d been tempted to feel sorry for J.D., she thought, annoyed by her previous empathy for the man.

Thayer had indicated earlier that he intended to avoid doing business with Kemp at all costs to prevent becoming more deeply in debt to the Mill Valley lumber baron than he already was. Now it would seem they were practically partners once again! Today’s exchange with her employer was a timely reminder never to believe—or sympathize with—someone who consorted with the likes of Kemp and his cronies.

J.D. had remained silent while she lowered her gaze from their vantage point atop the scaffolding encasing the Bay View. She could see that wagering establishments were springing up among the charred ruins of Chinatown and along the notorious Barbary Coast. Most likely, that was where Thayer could be found most evenings when he absented himself from the Morgan team housed at the Fairmont.

“Well, enough lecturing on my part, Mr. Thayer,” she announced suddenly to J.D., steeling herself for a solo descent backwards down the ladder that led from the second floor construction to the first. “I expect you’ll build this hotel however you please. I will notify my employer of these deviations from our specified plans. Could you please write a note saying you absolve Julia Morgan’s firm from any and all liability that may result?”

J.D. hesitated, and then nodded. Much to her surprise, his next words even sounded conciliatory. “I understand and share your concerns, Miss Bradshaw. I’ll do my best to demand corrections from Kemp’s men.”

Startled, Amelia looked up from the top rung of the ladder to meet Thayer’s gaze.

“Well… ah… thank you,” she murmured, the wind suddenly taken out of her sails.

“And certainly I’m willing to put in writing that I will not hold you or the Morgan firm responsible for any subsequent problems.”

“That’s good of you, Mr. Thayer. I appreciate it.”

“And please let me descend the ladder ahead of you so I can give you a hand,” he offered.

Amelia stepped back onto the second story platform to allow J.D. to precede her down from the scaffolding.

“Thank you, sir,” she echoed faintly, baffled once again by her employer’s unpredictable response to her speaking her mind.

***

Meanwhile, over at the Fairmont, Julia Morgan’s troops dutifully followed in the architect’s wake, clambering through the hotel’s scorched remains with the insurance adjustors to inventory the destruction in greater detail. In addition to the damaged support columns and sagging floors, many ceilings had collapsed. Plaster walls had been pulverized into heaps of powdered limestone and sand. Struts and wiring were twisted into macabre shapes.

Worst hit of all were the stained glass windows in the lobby domes that had survived the quake but had exploded during the fire that had roared through the building in the hours following the temblor. Metal framing and glass panes had melted into molten masses that puddled onto the first floor.

Julia, who also had taken to wearing a woolen scarf against the summer chill, had not let a bad cough and a persistent earache confine her to the more commodious office in her family’s repurposed carriage barn in Oakland. Despite her obvious suffering, she had supervised every aspect of erecting the complicated scaffolding that now nearly encased the six-story hotel.

Pointing to the metal cage that held the colossal building in an ironclad embrace, she sighed. “I can only imagine the wreckage on the roof,” she said, as Morgan’s foreman, Myron Spellman, shouted from above that the scaffolding job was finally complete.

“I brought my Aunt Margaret’s spyglass from home,” Amelia volunteered. “I thought perhaps it would help with our exterior survey of the fifth, sixth, and roof levels. You could call off the problems that you spot through the glass, and I’ll write them down.”

Julia arched an eyebrow. “Amelia, there is no substitute for first hand observation. I can assure you, the men’s trousers we’re wearing under our skirts are far more useful than your spyglass.”

Amelia scanned the expanse of the exterior walls coated with soot. Julia was famous for fearlessly scaling scaffolds, but the building was six stories high on a windy hill!

“We’re going to climb up all the way to the top on the
outside
?” She dropped the spyglass into her portmanteau with a soft thud. Standing beside J.D. Thayer two stories above the ground at the Bay View that week had been quite enough.

“You are under no obligation to join me in this expedition,” Julia declared. By this time, foreman Myron Spellman had cautiously worked his way down the last ladder and stepped onto solid ground. “I am quite used to heights, but perhaps you’re not,” Morgan added brusquely.

Amelia surveyed the ladder and the wood-and-metal scaffolding encasing the mammoth front facade. Only the most sure-footed workers had been assigned to assemble the upper regions of the maze of latticework necessary for reconstruction.

Julia’s curt nod reminded Amelia that the coolness in the air had nothing to do with the temperature. Ever since the younger architect, along with Ira Hoover, J.D. Thayer, and Julia herself, had moved into their temporary living quarters in the basement, there had been subtle shift in Morgan’s behavior toward her. The woman whom Amelia had once considered an inspiration and guide repeatedly made it clear that now reconstruction was about to begin in earnest, her erstwhile acolyte had much to learn. This was especially evident when it came to the Law brothers and J.D. Thayer, all of whom tended to ask their questions of the younger architect rather than address the slightly forbidding Miss Morgan.