Trost designed clubhouse should be preserved

If Las Cruces had a building still standing from the early 1900s designed by famous American architects Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan or I. M. Pei destined for demolition, wouldn’t city leaders do everything in their power to protect it? No doubt. The same respect is due Henry C. Trost. The city should do its utmost to work with commercial real estate interests looking to develop the old Las Cruces Country Club land and likely raze the former clubhouse designed by the Southwest’s premier early 20th century architectural firm of Trost & Trost. Henry C. Trost is every bit as significant an architect as the aforementioned notables of America’s early days, and I contend even more significant when it comes to the hundreds of innovative architectural gems left standing in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. Trost was an early “green” architect. His “revival” style structures of the day took into account the Southwest’s arid environments, sun angles and prevailing winds, following the
lead of the early Spanish and Native Americans. Trost, who was the visionary behind the “horseshoe” design of the early NMSU and UTEP campuses and some of their most iconic buildings, left his cultural and historical stamp on early Las Cruces, his home base of El Paso, Socorro, Tucson, West Texas and other Southwest destinations. Just like our city’s 1908 John Miller and H. B. Holt homes and 1909 Wilfred Garrison House in Mesilla Park (1909) designed by Trost, the unique clubhouse should be preserved and repurposed in any new development to pay homage to the “Architect of the Southwest.”

Robert  McCorkle
 Las Cruces