Woodward School Building Restoration
The Washington County School District hired Campbell Architecture, a Jones & DeMille Company, to restore this historic icon in St. George, Utah. The restoration of the Woodward School Building also involved site development around the perimeter of the building as well as a period octagonal gazebo on the west side of the facility.
Originally built in 1901, the Woodward Elementary School is a two-story structure built of locally quarried stone. Volcanic stone for the foundation was intended for an earlier Academy building which was never built. The walls are rough-faced, regular coursed red sandstone a characteristic of many school buildings of the period.
From the rectangular, truncated hip roofed central mass, gabled bays project on each elevation forming a symmetrical configuration. Atop the main entrance pavilion is a hipped roof bell tower or cupola. Under the wide eaves are decorative brackets. Entrances on the east and west elevations are round arched. Windows are double-hung sash types arranged in groups of three and four. Lintels are rough-faced blocks, coursed in conjunction with the walls. Sills are fully dressed ashlar elements which break the coursing somewhat.
Like the Old Dixie College building, the Woodward School Building seems heavily influenced by late Victorian forms, but especially by the Richardsonian Romanesque style in the handling of materials, simplicity of form, window treatment and minimum detail. The rough-faced masonry and round arched entries are of course the primary indicator of this parallel.
