The Coastland Times

CHOOSES PARTNER, PROFESSION. ENTERS BUSINESS IN RALEIGH

Richard Bell, Manteo Boy, After Extensive Training Has Office In the Capital

By AYCOCK BROWN

When Dick Bell and Jim Godwin were classmates at State College in the late 40's they may have started plans to become associated in landscape architecture and site planning.

After receiving their B. S. degrees in landscape architecture at graduation in June 1950, each went their different courses. Then, five years later, they returned to Raleigh and are now in business there.

James (Jim) Beckman Godwin was born in Richmond, Va., six days after the Armistice of World War I, in 1918. He graduated from Suffolk (Va.) High School in 1937 and went to work immediately with the Virginia Department of Highways. In 1941 he entered the Army in February 3 as a private and before his discharge in 1946, he was a Captain of Infantry with considerable overseas duty in the Eastern Theatre of Operations.

From June, 1946, until August, 1947 he was a student at the University of South Carolina. In September, 1947, he entered North Carolina State and before graduation four years later he was to serve as chairman of the Honor Council for the School of Design.

He married Rebecca Cade, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Cade of Sanford.

Richard (Dick) Chevalier Bell, was born in Elizabeth City on April 10, 1928. After graduation from the high school there in 1945 he entered State College. It was only natural that Bell would be interested in landscape architecture. His father Albert Q. Bell, British-born and the son of the late Albert Ernest Bell, had inherited a love for growing flowers and plants and landscaping from his father. They had been associated in the nursery business at Elizabeth City, before his father moved to Roanoke Island where he was to design and build Waterside Theater for the Lost Colony and establish Roanoke Gardens.

Military training at State resulted in a commission as 2nd lieutenant in the organized Reserve Corps for Dick Bell in 1949 and in February 1954, he was promoted to first lieutenant in the Organized Reserve Corps. During summer holidays between 1945-50, Dick Bell had worked with his father in connection with constructing and maintenance of Waterside Theater and also assisted in the planning of Mountain Theater at Cherokee, of which Albert Bell was designer. In Raleigh from 1949 until his graduation young Bell did part-time work with the campus engineer at State.

Since his graduation, Jim Godwin gained his experience in construction phases of landscape architecture in the office of R. D. Tillson, landscape architect and engineer at High Point. He became an associate in that firm in 1953 and in High Point he worked on some 15 or more housing projects, several cemeteries, subdivisions and parks.

Among some of the major projects he has worked on included the E. I. duPont de Nemours May plant at Camden, S. C.; the Celanese Corporation of America's Cel-River plant at Rock Hill; Burlington Mills Corporation's Neuse River plant at Wake Forest; Western Electric Company's Lexington Road plant in Winston-Salem and the General Electric Company's Asheboro plant.

Site improvement work projects which included grading, utilities, drives, walks and landscape designs on which Godwin worked have been located in several North Carolina cities from Wilmington to Winston-Salem and many points between. Site lay-out work has included such projects as the Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, Greensboro, Friends Meeting House, High Point, Chapel Hill Cemetery, City Park Pool and Bathhouse, Burlington and also the Presbyterian Church there, and several other jobs including many school grounds in North and South Carolina cities.

Bell's Training

Since his graduation Dick Bell has had unusual experiences. First he had worked from 1950 through September, 1951, in the office of Simonds and Simonds, landscape architects of Pittsburgh, Pa. In the meantime, in competitive examinations, he won the Rome Prize Fellowship in Landscape Architecture. One is awarded each year primarily on the basis of design ability, personal integrity, ability to cope with all facets of the pro-

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fessional practice of landscape architecture and personality.

For two years Bell took part in a cultural travel program for the analysis and study of the great works of art and architecture in many countries. The chief accent in the program for members of his profession who win the fellowship is on large scale planning such as the Italian piazzas, and parks; French formal gardens for the Baroque; and Spanish Moorish palace gardens. From his travels in Europe and Asia. Bell was able to gain the influence of various cultures on other cultures traced from India. Egypt. Greece, Sicily. Rome and Europe generally. During his travels he visited in addition to Italy, France. Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, French Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Germany, Denmark, Egypt, Greece, Trans Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Ceylon and India. He brought home more than 2,000 color slides of photographs he had made in his travels.

In October. 1954. Bell returned to North Carolina and opened an office at Roanoke Gardens in Manteo, where one of his major projects has been the general development plan for the Driftwood Garden and Recreational Area at The Carolinian on Nags Head and the general planting plan for the Belhaven Community Cemetery.

Dick Bell is a member of the American Academy in Rome and both he and Jim Godwin are members of the American Society of Landscape Architects.