Charles K. Sumner

Charles Kaiser Sumner (1874–1948) was an American architect, who practiced primarily in California.

Formative years Born as Charles Sumner Kaiser in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1874, Charles Kaiser attended the Columbia University School of Architecture. He received a traveling scholarship to Europe and the Middle East and was hired by McKim, Mead and White in New York, where he worked for Charles Follen McKim.

Career The Claremont Club, c. 1915 Kaiser, as he was still known at the beginning of the twentieth century, moved to Berkeley, California in 1906 and opened a practice there, designing houses and the Claremont Club, as well as houses and the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Sacramento. In 1916, he moved to Palo Alto and established his practice in San Francisco.

Responding to anti-German sentiment during World War I, he reversed his middle and last names in 1917, calling himself "Charles Kaiser Sumner."

Later years and death Sumner practiced until 1941. He died in Palo Alto on May 25, 1948.