Reginald Summerhayes

Reginald Summerhayes (1897–1965) was a Western Australian architect, Military Cross recipient, and president of the Australian Institute of Architects.

Biography Reginald Summerhayes was born 19 February 1897 at Bernard Street, Claremont to the architect Edwin Summerhayes and his wife Florence. Summerhayes graduated from Scotch College in 1913 as dux, and later as president, elected March 1937.

Summerhayes returned to the military in World War II, in a non-active service role as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Australian Army. In the following years, his architectural business grew, and he founded Summerhayes & Associates in 1952. That same year, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, in honour of his service to Western Australian architecture. In 1953 Summerhayes' son Geoffrey Edwin Summerhayes, who had also become an architect, joined his father's firm. Reginald Summerhayes died, aged 68, on 28 November 1965.

In the mid-1930s he worked on the Physics and Chemistry Science Building at UWA, opened in 1935, new council chambers for the Town of Claremont, whose earlier chambers were built by his father; and in a supervisory role, the 1936 Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society Building (on the corner of St Georges Terrace and Sherwood Court

By 1937, Summerhayes had been successful in various architectural competitions, including flats and professional chambers for UWA, Wagin's town hall, Perth Dental Hospital, Lake Karrinyup Country Club, and in conjunction with sculptor Edward Kohler, an equestrian statue of King George V for Brisbane Town Hall. He designed church buildings in a Romanesque style, for the new buildings at Loreto Convent, Claremont in 1937, All Hallows' Church in Inglewood in 1938, and St Joseph's Catholic Church in Manjimup built 1953–55. Summerhayes also designed multiple hotels built in 1940, including Highway Hotel in Claremont, the Civic Hotel in Inglewood, and the Swanbourne Hotel.

Legacy Many of Summerhayes' buildings have been demolished, but the bell tower of Loreto Convent was relocated to William Street in 1992. The rebuilding and restoration project was performed by the Holmes à Court family company, Heytesbury Holdings, and supervised by Summerhayes's son Geoffrey.