Robert Brown Young

Robert Brown Young (April 1, 1854 - January 29, 1914) was a Canadian-born architect who designed buildings in California.

Born in Huntingdon County, Quebec, Canada, on April 1, 1854, his parents were Alexander and Mary Ann (Dowler) Young. Young attended Huntingdon Academy. In 1877, he moved to Denver, Colorado, where he finished his education in construction and architectural drawing. He left thereafter for California, locating in San Francisco for two months before arriving in Los Angeles in the fall of 1878. He immediately opened up his office as an architect and general contractor.

Los Angeles at that time was a thriving city of about 10,000 and there were only two other architects here. Within a short time, demands for plans and architectural drawings were coming in far faster than he could handle them, and he was obliged to give up his work in contracting entirely and confine his attention to architectural work. During this period of building “boom”, he had 87 buildings under construction at one time.

Among some of the prominent buildings attributed to Young are the Westminster, Hollenbeck and Rosslyn hotels and Burbank theatre; the Lankershim block and the Lankershim hotel, Blackstone’s dry goods store, Barker Brothers’ building; the Seminole, Engstrum, Young and Westonia apartment hotels; the Kissel Kar and Mitchell garages. He was the resident architect of the new Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. He also designed the Yuma County court house, at Yuma, Arizona, and he built many Catholic churches and schools in the diocese of Los Angeles and Monterey. He also designed the State Reform School at Whittier, the Masonic Temple at Corona; St. Andrew’s Catholic Church at Pasadena, and the Reynolds’ department store at Riverside. He served as president of the Southern California Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

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