Overdrawn: Blueprint for a Perfect Crime

By Robinson Neil Bass

Errett Brackney has it all. He is a talented and successful mid-century modern architect who trained with the elite at Yale University when it was at the forefront of the modern movement. But he has a dark side. Frustrated by being relegated to a secondary role in the design of a major bank building, a commission he had diligently sought, Errett, with the aid of several martinis, realizes that with his unique access, creativity and audacity, he can commit the perfect crime. He can steal over $2 million and no one would ever realize there had been a theft. At first an intriguing fantasy, the scheme becomes an obsession and then a reality.

Set in the 1960's in the South, the book provides insights into the philosophy of mid-century modern design as well as an intimate portrait of a small architectural office where creating drawings by hand was an integral part of the design process.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781468523805

Robinson Neil Bass

Robinson Neil Bass was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1928. He graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1949 and from the Yale University Department of Architecture in 1953 where he studied under Eugene Nalle, Vincent Scully, Buckminster Fuller, and Louis Kahn among others. After serving three years on active duty in the United States Naval Reserve and three years as an apprentice at a Memphis architectural firm, he opened his own office in Nashville in 1960. He practiced architecture there for over thirty years working on residential, institutional and commercial projects. In the mid-sixties he was in the vanguard of the effort to revitalize and preserve historic buildings but at the same time never wavered from his devotion to the principles of contemporary architecture. During his career he received several national design awards. He resides in Nashville with his wife, Clara. They have three daughters and six grandchildren.

Book preview

1

Tonight it would be a triple. The gold and scarlet tunic of the Tower guard always looked spectacular doubled by the mirror and contrasted with the total absence of color in the ice, crystal, gin and stainless steel that made up the other components of the bar. All things being equal, the bottle design influenced his choice in the brands of liquor he bought. The three pin-hole spotlights penetrated the dim light and intensified the contrast. He enjoyed the beauty of the gin smoothly flowing over the sharp edges of ice, curling around the onions and settling into the cut crystal glass. Errett had a thing about ice; he smiled as he recalled the salesman’s utter disbelief when he had insisted on examining the actual cubes before purchasing the icemaker. Even tonight there was that feeling he liked about the drink mixing ceremony. The scarcity of funds dictated that most of the thirty-seven thousand square foot warehouse would remain untouched, at least for the foreseeable future, but the bar was an extravagant exception. It was one of the main features of his living quarters. He had chosen the top floor – the third – of the century old structure for his apartment, not only because it overlooked the fort and the river beyond, but because of the several skylights there.

He picked up and unfolded the downtown evening edition of the Register and sank into his Eames chair. The soft, black leather felt cool to his skin. His legs were tanned and hairy and more muscular and trim than his forty-seven years would indicate.

When he was alone, disgusted and frustrated he sometimes stripped to his shorts to drink. It was not necessary to read the lead column. He knew all too well what it would report.

Mountain Valley Bank to Build New Downtown Headquarters, it was a thirty-six point headline and covered four columns. Honorary Chairman Elton P. Longworth, Chairman Larry G. Rhodes, and President William Matthews announced today the signing of an agreement to construct their new twenty-seven story main office facility filling the entire downtown block now being partially occupied by Mountain Valley. Construction will begin as soon as the necessary permits can be obtained. The project is a joint venture between Independent Life Insurance Company of New York, the Larson Partnership, a real estate development firm of Houston and Mountain Valley Bank. Francis Larson, President of the giant development firm, in town for the ceremony, said, We are delighted to play a role in the revitalization of downtown Thomasville. Your city has a great future, and we are glad to be a part of it."

Construction costs are estimated to exceed sixty-three million dollars. Mayor-elect Richard Allen postponed a trip to the west coast to be on hand to congratulate bank officials and their development team. 1968 promises to be another exciting year in the vibrant growth of our central business district, and this thirteenth day of May is a lucky day for our great city, the mayor-elect said. I wish you great success in this important endeavor. General contractor for the project will be Butler & Beane of Atlanta and the architect is Abbott, Archer, O’Brien, and Edwards, also of Atlanta. Errett Brackney and Associates will serve as resident architect."

Shit. Errett had thought about declining that position.

Once before he had resigned after realizing he was in an untenable position as co-designer of a large state office building. The governor’s patronage committee had joined him with the firm of Miller & Appleton which over the years had consistently made large political contributions. Errett never thought he would become involved in the political game and was amazed at how this particular union came about. The state architect, the administrator who oversees state building matters, was interested in achieving a higher quality of architecture for state projects and had asked Errett to design an elaborate retirement home for the governor. The drawings were finished and in the pricing stage when the governor’s wife was killed in a grinding pre-dawn automobile crash. She had a history of heavy drinking but the account in the newspaper merely reported that her car had been across the yellow dividing line. The house was never built, and Errett figured his chances for really important State work had crashed with the car since now the governor would have no real chance to get to know him or experience his kind of architecture.

But three months later he got the notice informing him of his joint appointment with Miller & Appleton to design a new high-rise state office building. At first Errett was delighted… this was the chance he had been waiting for… a major downtown project.

He had chosen to practice in Thomasville not only because Tennessee was his boyhood home and he loved its natural beauty and the four distinct seasons, but also because he wanted to give back his best to this place. To help bring beauty and grace into the obvious vitality of the newly emerging downtown, which was steadily and subtly being superimposed upon the fabric of the old cityscape.

Fort Thomasboro was founded in 1778 by a plucky group of Scottish-Irish immigrants who had come up the Cherokee from the Ohio on flat-bottomed long boats. The four hundred mile trip had taken five months and four lives. Their destination had been carefully chosen a year in advance. The spot sounded ideal – a bluff on the edge of the river for security and a nearby saltlick that assured a plentiful supply of game. The lick was quite rare in that region, so much so that the Indians had agreed that the land was to be the domain of no one tribe, but should remain forever an unencumbered hunting area for all.

Naturally, the settlers’ encroachment incurred more than the usual amount of wrath. The Indian attacks occurred with such frequency that survival became the settlers’ only real concern. One of the more colorful stories of the Indian encounters involved the saving of the settlement by the timely release of the stockade dogs into the war party by Emily Thomas. The Brackneys hadn’t been in the first group of boatloads, but neither had they been too far behind. The original stockade had long ago disappeared but a much smaller C.C.C. replica stood not too far from the original site on the bluff overlooking the river on the edge of downtown Thomasville.

2

It hadn’t taken long for him to realize that it was politics – social, civic and corporate- and not talent which was the main ingredient in the selection of architects. Bitterly he had come to accept the fact that since he found campaign contributions, boot-licking, and social maneuvering distasteful, he would have to depend for the most-part on the small number of clients who understood that architecture was an art form – at least until his national reputation was established.

The experience with Miller & Appleton had been a disaster from the start. Miller seemed to present no problem since he spent most of his time in and around the offices on Capitol Hill; but Joe Appleton was another matter. He wanted to hold the pencil during the critical concept stage. Errett kept looking for a way to combine the state standard five-foot square module into an envelope that would be sculptural and offer structural excitement while remaining practical and logical. Joe insisted on the tried and true thirty-foot square assembly of modules which, when given standard engineering input, nearly always resulted in a five-bay by seven-bay rectangular building. Joe was pleased at how easily the entrance and elevator bank fitted into the center of the floor plan. Oh God, Errett thought, we’re at that tech school level. There were heated arguments that often lasted into the early morning hours. One especially bad moment occurred when Joe Appleton offered to settle the matter in the alley behind his office. Shortly thereafter, the issue was decided when Miller convinced three of the five members of the State Building Commission that Brackney’s approach would produce a building that would be both controversial and uneconomical, and over the protest of the state architect, Joe Appleton was appointed chief designer. Errett resigned. The resultant building is what you might expect: safe and mediocre, not ugly but heavy-handed and dull. It is constructed of solid, long-lasting materials, but is another example of opportunity lost. And now Errett was to be a part of the commitment of the most promising block in downtown to something less than it should be. Errett remembered his first meeting with Tom O’Brien, the polished, bearded principal of the Atlanta firm. Tom was in charge of design there. Errett had just arrived at the Atlanta airport and Tom was there to meet him.

Errett recalled the flight had docked at gate forty-three… about as far as you could get from the main entrance… there would be that long walk down the grey terrazzo concourse. The general tone of their relationship would be established on that walk. It was always a strain at a meeting like this and a bit difficult to break the ice. Neither was pleased with the association or having to cope with another design-oriented colleague who was used to having his own way.

Their meeting began as predicted with a few banalities about the flight. Errett wondered if Tom would comment on the fetching gait of the sandy-haired stewardess walking in front of them. Tom didn’t.

There was an uncomfortable silence as they strode through the main terminal. Although their pace was brisk, it seemed to take too much time to get to and through the big room, down the escalator and into the parking lot.

As they approached the car they managed to get the conversation going again by talking in minute detail about Tom’s year-old Bavarian sedan. Tom was obviously proud of its fine German engineering, but Errett thought its beige color lacked the requisite snap.

As they sped down the interstate toward downtown Atlanta there were other awkward periods of silence. After parking, Tom ushered Errett to the elevator and their nineteenth floor office. He introduced Errett first to the receptionist, then to his own secretary and finally to the senior partner of the firm.

Abbott was about fifteen years older than both of them and was a big man. Errett noticed his fingers and thought they were too fat and stubby for the man to be creative and sensitive. His chief interest seemed to lie in his farm, some forty miles south of Atlanta, and the joy he derived from operating the various pieces of wheeled machinery he kept there. He was of the age group that simply to follow the contemporary approach to architecture was distinction enough to set him apart from his peers. Yet he had been smart and he knew that he should bring younger and more talented men into his firm as the need for sophistication and refinement arose. The firm was flourishing.

As long as there was small talk they would not have to confront the design of the bank. Tom seemed to be dreading the moment as much as Errett.

The tracings were spread out on Tom’s drafting table which was directly behind Tom’s desk. The two of them stood in the narrow space between as Tom began shifting the various sheets of paper as he explained to Errett the approach they had taken.

The design was already set, even some details were there; everything had been drawn free-hand on yellow sketch paper. Obviously, they had chosen not to have the type of presentation they would have had for a client. That subtle gesture was not overlooked by Errett; there would be at least, the pretense of getting his approval on the concept. When it became obvious that Errett had reservations about the design and began to hedge in his endorsement, Tom quickly made it clear he was going ahead with the scheme as it was shown and that was all there was to that.

In Tom’s design of the bank he had shown that he had not considered the fundamental planning concept of foreground and background buildings and when to provide each. On the other three corners of that key intersection in Thomasville weak buildings – all financial institutions – had been recently erected.

Surely it was incumbent upon the designer of the fourth corner to put up something that would give definition to, and create a real sense of place for the entire intersection. A positive, profound architectural statement was required.

Turn to page eighteen for a full-color rendering.

Shit.

Another reflective glass curtain wall – this time it was a trapezoid with forty-five degree angles at the corners; but, never-the-less it was just another curtain wall; now more energy-efficient, but still a curtain wall. How could they?

Thomasville was an old city with a lot of third and fourth generation money. Somehow established money is always reflected in the general character of a city’s downtown. And the old money had managed to keep the fashion-and-fad designers from spoiling the downtown cityscape. The get-rich-quick guys were putting up all sorts of trick architecture throughout the suburbs and even on the edges of the central city; but, somehow the very conservatism that frustrated architects and planners in Thomasville had worked to protect its downtown. In the long run being fifteen years behind the leaders probably would be a plus. In most cities one can walk down the sidewalks and identify the current architectural modes of the entire sixties decade or worse to have to endure a poor copy of the Seagram building or an inept handling of the ideas that make the Ford Foundation Building great. If they make the magazines, it was a solid bet there would be a local version popping up on Wilshire Boulevard or Peachtree Street.

Although there were a few venerable examples of very early Federal and Greek Revival period buildings left in downtown Thomasville, the building boom that took place during the first part of the century had set the tone of things in the city’s heart. The Twenties had produced numerous grand and monumental structures all with cut limestone facades resplendent with their neo-classical orders in full array.

A glass tower just won’t be appropriate, he had almost pleaded with Tom. Thomasville is a masonry town – and since economics dictated that the internal structure of the bank was to have columns of poured-in-place concrete with a concrete pan-joist floor system, why not allow the exterior to attest to that fact and proclaim the strength and integrity of the concrete structure? Why not use a richly textured architectural concrete for the surface and have a really strong shadow maker? Errett even tried to point out that a building with carefully controlled shadows could become an even greater energy saver.

To choose to cover the gutsy concrete structure with a thin veneer of glass was inconceivable to Errett. The mistake-to-be was a classic example of out-of-town experts missing the real character of the place and therefore the essence of the issue.

Leaning back in the chair beside his bar, Errett took a long sip of the Gibson. The cold bite of the gin felt good in the back of his mouth.

Errett remembered that morning thirteen months before when he showed Mr. Longworth, Larry and Bill his proposal for the building. Man, did his scheme sweep around the corner, in style, in force, in spades. He felt it was his best design – proud without being pretentious; dynamic without losing discipline; imposing but retaining human scale. He remembered the emotional moment when he wanted to say that Louis Sullivan would have liked the way it turned that corner.

Errett recalled how carefully he had chosen his suit for the occasion. A light grey flannel with a subtle dark grey and black plaid. A bit racy perhaps, but the conservative blue oxford button down shirt would help. He chose a dark paisley wool tie. His hair, which he hoped would suggest artistic creativity, had been a little longer than bankers would find comfortable. Contrast the outfit with a soft voice intoning a lively architectural jargon polished by four years at Yale and you had a mystique that Errett thought would surely be compelling. The presentation had gone well. An exciting solution, they had said.

A beautifully stated case.

A real asset to the city.

A people kind of place.

The elegant luncheon in the executive dining room and the thank-yous, smiles, and handshakes were followed by silence. Three weeks of silence. Then Larry called to say the Executive Committee had decided to engage a developer to be the owner of the project and the bank would be a tenant, contributing the land as an investment which would be used to reduce the bank’s rental rate and that they had an option to buy-in in eight percent increments every ten years. This would allow the bank to have its new building without invading its capital… a brilliant financial move that would strengthen its position as the new financial leader of the Southeast. Of course, the developer would name the architect, but Errett’s name would be suggested and they hoped he would understand, and they were looking forward to commissioning him for the new and important East Gate Branch coming up in February.

Shit.

If only the AAO&E solution had been great, Errett would have embraced their effort and willingly been part of the team. But the disappointment and the empty feeling were compounded by the hurt of knowing his solution would have been so right for the city… and Christ, for the bank… it would have made the bank! People would have flocked to see it… the mileage they would have gotten would have been tremendous… the time and money they spend promoting tennis matches… concerts and even horse shows… but when it came to the opportunity – their big opportunity – to sponsor significant and lasting urban enrichment they somehow managed to align themselves with people who couldn’t deliver. A total washout! Not only is a city’s history most faithfully recorded in its architecture, but in the individual buildings one can clearly read the personality of the original owner.

Well, they had their chance. Errett took the final long drink of gin. Holding the crystal glass to the light, he admired its beauty.

The playful and spherically distorted images seen through the thick bottom of a glass are an extra fringe benefit to the drinking process. The thing he liked so much about Beefeaters was that incredible taste… pungent yet soothing… real character… fire in the ice. Bitterly he thought of Ed Davis, who he knew would be happy to settle for the mediocre. This way he wouldn’t have to budget for a team of pretty guides who would be needed to escort the constant stream of visitors through Errett’s building. He could save the cost of outfitting them in sporty blazers and the cost of printed handouts.

Edward G.(for Grant) Davis was the executive vice-president in charge of financial affairs. He thought of everything in terms of earnings per share and now Larry had placed him in charge of managing the new construction project. Errett knew it was going to be tough to save the building with finishing touches. Ed’s budget would see to that. The thought seemed to call for more gin.

The first time he met Ed Davis had been at a cocktail party. It was strange how some men comfortable in their office environment, are totally out of their element in a social situation. That day, Ed had on his dark blue suit and had come up to Errett and his wife, hand outstretched saying, Ed Davis, Mountain Valley Bank. When Ed had stepped away, Barbara said, You know, he seems so insecure.

Throughout the lengthy construction process Errett would have to be working closely with Ed – on almost a daily basis. Another long sip, but this time mostly ice.

Resident architect, shit. They could get anybody to check footing steel, shuffle papers, write progress reports, and generally oversee the construction. As a matter of fact, dozens of less creative architects could do a much better job at this kind of staff work than could Errett. But this time there would be no resignation. There was a real need for the forty-five thousand dollar fee. Errett arose from his chair. The soft, black leather seemed reluctant to release his bare legs. That subtle, tactile response was something he had always wondered about – had Charles Eames really known what the effect of the leather on bare skin would be, or was it just a happy accident? As he moved toward the bar he glanced about him. Even in the dim light the beauty of the place was evident. He needed the forty-five and then some… The old warehouse was worth every bit of it. The brick walls were never meant to be exposed and their roughly laid texture was sensational. The bricks were dark red and burnt umber mostly; but there were some that approached blue-black. The old mortar had taken on the color tones or a ripe camembert. Many of the bricks were split or chipped and out of plumb; the coursing was haphazard. And about eight feet above the third floor the brick became more uniform in a color that could only be called orange. It was this crazy non-pattern that made the walls so universally admired. Everyone who saw it for the first time commented and most had to go over and touch.

The biggest thrill had been on that hot July afternoon – the day after he signed the papers – when, with a bandana tied over his nose and mouth to screen out the dust – he had swung away at the plaster with a rusty sledge hammer… gradually revealing the brick wall underneath. With hair and eyebrows covered with white dust he had worked until he had found two fireplace openings . . why would anyone plaster over a fireplace? This must have been done in the thirties…

His love for the old structure had grown that day – and wasn’t that what love was supposed to do – grow with familiarity and intimacy of experience?

The old plaster that covered everything but the fireplace openings was more sturdy than today’s. He could have peeled away today’s plaster in great sheets in modules of the metal lathe. But this had not been so easy for there was no back-up lathe. Instead the plaster was laced with brown horsehair sometimes in clumps… sometimes in long threads; this was the same as Giotto’s plaster. Errett felt a warmth for the men who had placed this wall over a hundred years before. He hoped they would understand that his act of destruction was really an act of conservation and of love… for bringing out the integrity of the structure.

And then there had been the discovery of those great ten-foot wide half circle arches built into the plane of the brick wall. What a turn-on that had been! No one could figure a purpose for the arches… they didn’t seem to serve any function. It must have been to provide for the option of cutting openings into the adjoining building. But now they were to be enjoyed just for their beauty. Perhaps some day the openings would be cut and the space flow through… a space teeming with activity… of people working and enjoying themselves in the revitalized waterfront district… maybe a dream, maybe not. He had located of offices of Errett Brackney and Associates, A.I.A. on the warehouse’ second floor, which had huge windows overlooking Market Street, the once booming commercial center of an emerging and lusty Thomasville. His living quarters were almost void of furniture, but that seemed to enhance the spaciousness of it all. The roof plane sloped back from an eighteen foot height at the Market Street end until at the river end it was just nine feet above the floor. This plane, however, was punctuated by no fewer