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Jay Dayton Smith House
The Jay Dayton Smith House, located at 624 South Sixth Street in Las Vegas is significant as a locally outstanding example of Spanish Colonial Revival style residential architecture (Criteria C). The building and its accompanying garage are located in a cohesive residential neighborhood surrounding the Art Deco style, Las Vegas High School. The. principal buildings of the High School were listed in the National Register on September 24, 1986.
Located at 624 South 6th Street in Las Vegas, Nevada and added to the National Register of Historic Places. (#87000077)
The J. D. Smith House is exemplary of the Spanish Colonial Revival style in Las Vegas with its irregular massing, asymmetrical facades, and red tiled, low pitched gabled and. flat, red tiled roofs. The stuccoed exterior is pierched by round and pointed arches on the front facade. Its exterior details include a round tower, a wing wall enclosing the sideyards, and a carport with arched entry. The interior boasts a sunken living room with a timbered truss cathedral ceiling, a central fireplace with decorative trim, and a random width plank floor. Built in 1931-32, the structure survives intact and has undergone no major changes.
The J. D. Smith House is a substantial example of the Spanish Colonial Revival style, a popular style in Las Vegas during the 1930s. 28 other residential structures and 10 apartment and commercial buildings have been identified as designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival or Mission Revival styles for the 1984 Clark County Historic Property Survey. The Smith House is one of four elaborate Spanish Colonial Revival styled residences included.in the survey. The three Spanish Colonial Revival styled residences which rival the J. D. Smith House in size, scale, and details are the Whitehead Residence at 333 North Seventh Street (Built in 1922, altered 1955, 1965), the Foremaster House at 701 South Seventh Street (Built in 1927, altered 1942, 1945), and the Henderson House at 704 South Ninth Street (Built 1930). The J. D. Smith House is the only one of the four which has had no modification of its massing or detail.
Las Vegas was founded in 1905 by the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad Company as a division point for its main line between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. The railroad laid out the city and formed the Las Vegas Land and Water Company to manage the townsite. Las Vegas was a small railroad company town until the late 1920s when the economy begain to diversify. (The population was 945 in 1910 and 2304 in 1920.) Congress passed the Boulder Canyon Project Act in 1928 assuring the construction of a dam across the Colorado River. Las Vegas, with its rail access, became the main supply center for the dam site some 20 miles away. In 1930 construction of the dam began and Las Vegas’ population swelled to 5, 165. New subdivisions were platted between 1928 and 1934 including the South Addition where Dr. Smith purchased three lots. Dr. Jay Dayton Smith (1894-1984), a dentist, was born in Monona, Iowa and settled in Las Vegas in 1926. Smith subsequently became a community leader particularly active in the field of Education. He served on the Clark County School District Board from 1935-1953. In 1964 his commitment to local education was honored when the first junior high school in Las Vegas was named the J. D. Smith Junior High School. In 1931, the date of construction of the Smith House, Las Vegas experienced the most active year to date for construction of all types of buildings. The Jay Dayton Smith House is significant for its association with the City’s first major building boom.
The Jay Dayton Smith House was designed by architects Warner and Nordstrom and built by the Hampton Brothers, contractors. The original drawings produced by Warner & Nordstrom indicate that they were Las Vegans; however, there are no records of where they lived or worked in Las Vegas. A literature search does not show them as prominent architects in southern California or as Bureau of Reclamation architects working on Hoover Dam. The four Hampton brothers operated Hampton Brothers Construction Company. The 1984 Clark County Property Survey cites the Hampton Brothers as “the most successful venture in the local building trade” in the 1930s. Hampton Brothers Construction Company built many other houses in the area. Identified in the 1984 Clark County Historic Property Survey iare the Nevada Electrf.ic Company at 201 South Bridger, 327 North Ninth Street, 816 South Third Street and 818 South Third Street.
Dr. Smith lived in the 624 South 6th Street house until 1947 and his wife continued to live in the house until her death in 1970. The property remains in the family and is presently owned by Jeanne Smith Stewart and Cassandra J. Smith Vincent. Dr. Smith’s office was on the second floor of the Mesquite Building at 103 Fremont. The building has been razed.
Although modest in comparison to many national examples of the Spanish Colonial Revival style, the Jay Dayton Smith House is an outstanding local example of the style. Constructed during the major Las Vegas building boom in the 1930’s, the Jay Dayton Smith House is one of the few Spanish Colonial Revival style dwellings to survive from the period and the only such dwelling to survive intact.
The white stucco walls are pierced by arched and rectangular openings. An ogee arched window opening is the focal window on the front facade. All the other window openings are rectangular in shape with no surrounds. The thirty-one original windows are all framed in wood and are a combination of fixed, casement, and double hung windows. The three exterior entries have eight paneled, wooden doors. The front door is generous and original. The kitchen and basement doors have been replaced with appropriate eight paneled wooden doors. A canted bay and chimney project from the north wall.
The front portion of the house is covered with an intersecting gabled roof of Mission type red tiles laid regularly. The rafter ends are exposed and painted a dark brown to contrast the white stucco walls. The rear portion of the building is covered with a built up, flat roof. The slight parapet walls surrounding the flat roof are topped with red tiles.
The modest exterior decoration includes a wrought iron weather vane topping the tower, wrought iron light fixtures, weep holes in the tower, and curvilinear gussets between the short patio walls and the carport wall.
The interior walls and ceilings are finished with a rough textured plaster which is painted white. The living room is the most elaborate. The rest of the rooms are modest in decoration with arched, recessed niches and arched doorways as the most common decorations. The house retains its original interior four panel wooden doors with original hardware and original dark wood built-ins.
The living room is sunken with a doweled, random width, hard wood floor. The major focus of the room is the fireplace which is sheathed in white plaster to integrate it into the rest of the wall and is decorated with elaborate decorative ceramic tile. Round arched niches are above and to each side of the fireplace. The dark wood, trussed beams elaborate the cathedral ceilings. The original wrought iron curtain rods remain. Patterned ceramic tiles decorate the risers leading to the dining room and the rest of the house.
The original yellow and green tiles and dark wood built-ins remain in the bathroom.
The basement has a red, coursed, concrete floor and original interior wood doors.
