Archives West Finding Aid

Albert Ernest Doyle, known as A. E. Doyle in his life, was born in 1877 in Santa Cruz, California, and moved with his family to Portland, Oregon, as a child. In 1893, he began an apprenticeship with the Portland architectural firm Whidden and Lewis. He worked for Whidden and Lewis until 1901, when he moved to New York to work for architect Henry Bacon. While in New York, Doyle took architectural courses at Columbia University. Doyle returned to Portland to work once more at Whidden and Lewis in 1904, and designed the Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition's Forestry Building in 1905. Doyle subsequently founded his own firm.

In 1906, Doyle traveled in Europe for several months. After returning to Portland, he married Lucie Godley (1877-1953); the couple had four children: Kathleen, Helen, Billy, and Jean. In 1908, Doyle's firm received its first major commission: the Meier & Frank department store in downtown Portland.

Doyle designed commercial and public buildings as well as residences, both in Portland and elsewhere in Oregon. Notable structures designed by Doyle in Portland included the Multnomah County Public Library, the U.S. National Bank building, the Lipman Wolfe Department Store, the Northwestern Bank Building, the Pittock Block, several buildings on the Reed College campus, the Pacific Building, the Terminal Sales Building, and Multnomah Civic Stadium (now Providence Park). Residences that Doyle designed included the homes of H. Russell Albee, Frank J. Cobb, Bert Ball, Joseph Bowles, Henry Wentz, and Mary Frances Isom.

Doyle was diagnosed with kidney disease in 1925, but continued to work. He died in January 1928. After his death, his firm was renamed A. E. Doyle and Associates; it retained this name until 1943, when member Pietro Belluschi (1899-1994) purchased the firm and renamed it for himself.

Source: "Albert E. Doyle (1877-1928)," by Val Ballestrem, Oregon Encyclopedia, https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/doyle_albert_e/