David Burns Hyer (May 21, 1875 – December 11, 1942) was an American architect who practiced in Charleston, South Carolina and Orlando, Florida during the first half of the twentieth century, designing civic buildings in the Neoclassical Revival and Mediterranean Revival styles.Hiers Family Genealogy, by Hiers Research Committee, 1974, p. 522
Biography David Burns Hyer was born on May 21, 1875, in Charleston, South Carolina, the youngest son of James S. Hyer and Ella Payne. Hyer served as a civil engineer at the Charleston Navy Yard and for many Southern railways, before opening his own private architectural practice in Charleston."Engineering News Record", Volume 129, 1949. Hyer’s Charleston office was located in the People's Building.
David Hyer married Sally Yeadon Mazyck, daughter of James Mazyck, in June 1904; they had four children: David B Hyer Jr., Yeadon Mazyck Hyer, Robert Payne Hyer and Helen Hyer.
Active in Charleston (see partial list of works below) Hyer was a member of the South Carolina Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).Journal of the AIA, 1913, page 400. By the early 1920s the Hyers established a home in Orlando. Hyer worked in association with Daytona and Winter Park architect John Arthur Rogers (father of architect James Gamble Rogers II);The Architecture of James Gamble Rogers II, by Patrick W McGlane and Debra A. McGlane, pp. 15 & 16. he also listed his architectural business in the Orlando city directories. As such, it was one of only 10 architectural firms listed in 1926, the others including: Frank L. Bodine, Fred E. Field, Murry S. King, Maurice E. Kressly, George E. Krug, Howard M. Reynolds, Frederick H. Trimble. Ryan and Roberts (Ida Annah Ryan and Isabel Roberts) and Percy P. Turner. It was one of 12 firms so listed in Orlando in 1927. During the 1920s Hyer maintained Orlando offices first in the Rose Building and later in the Phillips Block on South Orange Avenue.Orlando Telephone Directories, 1925-1929
Hyer's best and most visible Orlando work is the Grace Phillips Johnson Estate on Edgewater Drive. The grand Mediterranean Revival home is on a narrow isthmus between Lake Adair and Lake Concord, with sweeping views across Lake Concord to downtown Orlando. The house once had three murals by Florida artist Sam Stoltz, only one remains, a peacock.
James Gamble Rogers II managed David B. Hyer's Orlando office in 1934; by 1935 Hyer had moved back to Charleston permanently. Hyer continued to practice architecture in South Carolina as late as 1941. Hyer died on December 11, 1942, in Charleston, South Carolina.rsmeader on ancestry.com, posted March 7, 2009Engineering News Record, 1942, page 13See a photo of David Hyer's grave at this link: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/36050508
Architectural Work – Partial Listing
57 and 59 Gibbes St., Charleston SC - 1915 Garden Theater, 371 King Street, Charleston, SC – C. K. Howell and D. B. Hyer - 1918Great American Movie Theaters, by David Naylor, Preservation Press, 1987, Page 112 Y.W.C.A., Charleston, SC - 1918 Buist School, 103 Calhoun Street, Charleston, SC - 1920. W.T. Grant & Co. building, 265-267 King St. - 1920 Charleston High School, Charleston, SC - 1921The American Contractor, Volume 42, page 82 St. Barnabas Lutheran Church, 45 Moultrie Street, Charleston, SC – 1922Minutes of the Convention of the Lutheran Church in America, 1922, page 478 King Street Apartments, Charleston, SC (County Hall) - 1922Manufacturers' record, Volume 81, Issues 14-26; page 80 First National Bank Building, Holly Hill, SC - 1922Manufacturers' record, Volume 81, Issues 14-26; page 123 Trustees School, North Charleston, SC - 1922Manufacturers' Record, Volume 81, Issues 14-26; page 122 Andrew B. Murray Vocational School, 3 Chisolm Street, Charleston, SC - 1923Charleston (S.C.) News & Courier, December 12, 1942 at 2. Grace Protestant Episcopal Church, 98 Wentworth Street, Charleston, SC - 1923Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the Consecration of Grace Church By William Way, 1923, page 78 Charleston Heights Baptist Church - 1923Charleston (S.C.) News & Courier, December 12, 1942 at 2. Winyah Indigo School, Georgetown, SC - 1924 Charleston Country Club, Charleston, SC - 1925 (as associate architect with Parsons & Co. of Boston, MA)Charleston (S.C.) News & Courier, September 5, 1932 at 10. Pounds Motor Company Building, 162 W. Plant St., Winter Garden, FL - 1925 Grace Phillips Johnson Estate; 1005 Edgewater Drive, Orlando, FL - 1928 A. E. Arthur One-Stop Service Station, Orlando, FL - 1929Manufacturers' Record, Volume 95, Issues 14-19; page 109 Old Station 9, 1099 King Street, Charleston, SC - 1933Charleston (S.C.) News & Courier, January 20, 1933 at 14. Charleston County Courthouse (original 1792 Statehouse) additions, 84 Broad Street, Charleston, SC - 1941 Julian Mitchell School (now Mitchell Elementary)Charleston (S.C.) News & Courier, December 12, 1942 at 2. Rutledge Avenue Baptist Church, Charleston - 1917John E. Wells and Robert E. Dalton, The South Carolina Architects, 1885-1935, A Biographical Directory (Richmond, 1992), p. 80 Rutledge Avenue Baptist Church (addition)Charleston (S.C.) News & Courier, December 12, 1942 at 2. Ben Tillman School (now the Ronald McNair School)Charleston (S.C.) News & Courier, December 12, 1942 at 2.
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See also John Henry Devereux South Carolina architect who was a contemporary