Davis, Helen Sellers
Anniston native Helen Sellers Davis (1912-2008) was a noted architect and the first woman in Alabama to be licensed to practice architecture. Focusing primarily on residential design, she headed her own firm in Birmingham, Jefferson County, for 40 years and received several awards and honors for her work. For a time, Davis was one of the longest-practicing architects in the nation.
Sellers was born April 20, 1912, in Mobile, Mobile County, to Neil Edward Sellers, a physician, and Nell Brown and had one older and one younger brother. Early in her childhood, the family relocated to Anniston, Calhoun County. As a child, Sellers accompanied a family friend who loved to tour new homes in the city, and she then began checking out books in the local library on architecture. She attended local schools and in 1929 entered Ward-Belmont College (now Belmont University), a private two-year women's college in Nashville, Tennessee, graduating in 1931. Having been fascinated with building things from a young age, Sellers decided to pursue a degree in architecture and applied to the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (API; now Auburn University), where her older brother was already a student. She later noted that she received nothing but support from the faculty, despite the being one of only two women students at the time, the other being Miriam Toulmin (a great grandchild of congressmen James Taylor Jones). Sellers won the inaugural Alabama Chapter Design Prize while a student at API. She graduated in the spring of 1935, and the following November, she married Charles F. Davis Jr., an instructor in architecture at Auburn University. The couple would have three children, all of whom would become architects.
The Davises moved to Birmingham, where they both gained employment with Miller, Martin and Lewis, Architects. Three years later, they moved to another firm in which Charles was named a partner: Van Keuren, Davis, and Company. The company is still in operation and is known as Davis Architects. While there, she oversaw the redesign of the library space for her family church, South Highland Presbyterian, in 1954. In 1968, Helen left the company and established her own firm, Helen S. Davis, Architects. She worked primarily in residential architecture but occasionally took on more public projects. Although she began practicing in the era of the Modern style in architecture, she noted that she grounded her designs in the principles of classical architecture. Her designs can be found in numerous Alabama cities, including Anniston, Birmingham, Decatur, Morgan County; Jasper, Walker County and Talladega, Talladega County, as well as in Georgie, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
In recognition of her contributions to the profession and to breaking barriers for women, Alabama governor Bob Riley declared November 6, 2003, as "Helen Sellers Davis Day." Also that year, Auburn University's College of Architecture, Design and Construction gave her its Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2004, she received the Distinguished Architect Award from the Alabama Council of the American Institute of Architects. A lifelong member of South Highland Presbyterian Church, Davis was a deacon and elder and taught the "Wannabees" Sunday School class for 10 years. Davis died on April 10, 2008, in Birmingham. In 2012, she was posthumously awarded the Harpeth Hall/Ward-Belmont Distinguished Alumna Award from her alma mater, now Belmont University. At the time of her death, she was the third longest-practicing architect in the nation.
