Brad Tazewell, an ‘icon’ of Hampton Roads architecture, dies at 95

To know Brad Tazewell is to know the Norfolk skyline.

His firm, Williams and Tazewell Architects, worked on the Norfolk Southern Tower and the Bank of America office building, among many others in that city and across Hampton Roads. For those who worked for him — many who went to start their own architecture firms — E. Bradford Tazewell Jr. was an exacting boss who required a strong eye for detail.

He died last week at the age of 95. He was a World War II veteran who had a lasting legacy in Tidewater for his design work on several well-known buildings.

Two decades ago, Kenneth Stepka was trying to hire Tazewell away from another company. So Stepka, who led the architectural and engineering firm Clark Nexsen, called up Tazewell’s boss to ask for his portfolio because he owned the documents. The CEO said he could gift it, but Stepka insisted on paying. They decided on a price tag of $1.

“I bought Brad’s portfolio for a dollar and it probably was worth a million,” Stepka recalled in an interview Friday.

In those dusty portfolio pages were records of the Scope, Harrison Opera House and the Chrysler Hall, all projects Tazewell and his firm had a hand in designing. It gave Stepka and Clark Nexsen some pride in knowing they had the documents to so many iconic projects.

The list goes on: the Virginia Beach municipal court building, the Chesapeake Court Complex, the Old Dominion University Library and the University of Virginia Health Science Library.

To his peers, he was “most gracious, most gentlemanly,” someone who carried himself like a “classic” University of Virginia man in the way he dressed and presented himself with clients, according to interviews with Stepka and other former co-workers.

By the time Stepka hired him at Clark Nexsen, Tazewell was in his 70s. He considered retirement but preferred staying active, especially on the golf course at Princess Anne Country Club where he lived with his family on the 18th fairway and was a member for more than 85 years. Ten years ago, at 85, Tazewell was still designing for Clark Nexsen.

“Brad was never written off in a meeting or in a relationship with somebody as an old fuddy duddy who didn’t know what he was talking about,” Stepka said. “He was always heard. It was because he was very succinct, very on the mark.”

Tazewell grew up on Pembroke Avenue in Norfolk’s Ghent neighborhood and attended public schools before going to Episcopal High School in Arlington. His father was an architect, and young Brad spent summers working for him as a carpenter’s assistant. His great-great-grandfather was Littleton Waller Tazewell, for whom a downtown Norfolk street is named. The eldest Tazewell had a political career as governor, U.S. Senator, member of the U.S. House and as a state delegate.

Brad didn’t follow in those footsteps. At 17, he enlisted in the Army. He was a radio operator with the 10th Mountain Division in Italy. He stayed close to the company commandant, which meant he often was in the line of fire.

In April 1945, Tazewell was shot in the left arm and hip. “I was really, really lucky,” he told The Virginian-Pilot in an interview in 2011.

After returning home, Tazewell enrolled at the University of Virginia, graduating in 1949 with a bachelor’s degree in architecture. He received a master’s from the University of Pennsylvania two years later.

By 1954, he launched Williams & Tazewell with U.Va. friend Jimmy Williams.

“In those days,” Tazewell told The Pilot in 2011, “if you had a drawing board, some tracing paper, a few pencils and a little knowledge, you could open a firm.”

Tazewell was known for going around the office with a red pencil and plans made by the younger architects, giving them corrections where necessary, said his wife, Mary Lou.

“It was all for their help, to improve their work,” she said. Over his entire career, Tazewell opted to keep his work on paper, sketching out ideas and plans rather than pivoting to computers over the last several decades.

One of their earlier projects was the Scope — short for “kaleidoscope” — which opened in 1971 with seating for more than 10,000. At the time, it was the second-largest public complex in the state, behind only the Pentagon. It occupied 85,000 square feet and cost $28.5 million.

Tazewell described his design methods as “very budget-conscious, clean and simple.” His firm, he said, was “committed to contemporary architecture,” though usually nothing too showy.

It was his eye for detail that his friends said helped put him above the competition. One hotel developer in Virginia Beach who met Tazewell years ago once remarked how Tazewell taught him how to think in three dimensions for the first time.

“Brad had the ability to envision what something was going to look like before it was there,” said his close friend and golf buddy at Princess Anne Country Club, Les Watson.

Years ago, Tazewell developed a small tremor in his hand. But when someone wanted an addition to their house, Tazewell painstakingly took the time to draw out the design, once on the back of a paper placemat, Watson recalled.

“A sketch of his was breathtaking,” Watson said.

That precision also showed up on the golf course, where Tazewell was known to play up until about five years ago. He took his time on the course, carefully planning out each shot to set himself up for the next one.

“He’s the most competitive person I’ve ever played golf with and also the most fair,” Watson said.

With his easy access to the course from his house, Tazewell didn’t stop practicing his precision shots. Always refining and learning.

Gordon Rago, 757-446-2601, gordon.rago@pilotonline.com