As a designer I hear the term transitional style quite a bit. In the broad sense, it means something between traditional and contemporary. This may be a stretch for some architectural historians, but I believe that this wildly popular style was invented by an architect who grew up in…. drum roll please… Tully, New York. I was first introduced to this architect, named Irving Gill, when I started my architectural career in San Diego California. Irving Gill was the young assistant designer to Bertram Goodhue, who was the lead architect for the Panama-California expo at San Diego’s Balboa Park in 1915. These buildings are over the top with excessive ornamentation. When Irving Gill went on his own, he stripped all the extra details out and exposed the purity of the architectural forms creating some of the most simplistic and beautiful pieces of architecture in the world. Gustov Stickley featured Irving Gill more times than Green and Green in the Craftsman Magazine. The two men were only 13 years apart, so I  wonder… who influenced who? Did they hang out together and smoke cigars with whiskey discussing design theory and how they would change the face of furniture and architectural design forever? Silly thought, but if so, I wish I could have been a fly on one of those walls.