Merritt

Bernard Jason Merritt, a prominent local architect serving clients for over 40 years in Fayette and surrounding counties, died of pneumonia at 82 on Jan. 30, 2021 at St. Mark’s Medical Center in La Grange.

Born in 1938 in England, Merritt emigrated with his parents as a youngster to Durban, South Africa. He attended the University of Natal, where he played cricket and was active in the Athletic Union. He earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1962, and his thesis project for a community youth center led directly to his first independent design commission of a YMCA facility in Pinetown, a growing industrial satellite of Durban.

After passing his professional practice exams and becoming an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1965, Merritt left South Africa to join the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Taliesin Fellowship in Arizona as an apprentice. There, students were taught an architecture that united functional use, interior space, human proportion, and nature’s patterns into an organic whole. The Fellowship’s ethos of personal responsibility and “learning by doing” would forever shape his worldview and architectural practice.

In his two years as a Fellowship apprentice, Merritt contributed to many projects of Taliesin Associated Architects, the professional arm of the FLW Foundation, including the Marin County Civic Center and the Palace & Environs in Teheran, Iran. In 1968, he became a member of the Senior Fellowship, serving as an instructor to junior apprentices. He continued to work in the TAA practice under the leadership of William Wesley Peters until 1975.

In 1976, Merritt relocated to Texas, where he opened an independent architectural practice as Bernard Jason Merritt, Inc. In the same year, he became a naturalized US citizen and a Texas licensed architect. His practice included civic, religious, commercial, and residential architecture. He expanded his work into land use planning in 1983, after earning a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning (summa cum laude) from The University of Texas at Austin.

Merritt was a member of multiple professional organizations, including the American Institute of Architects and the American Society of Consulting Planners. In the 1980s, he completed renovations to St. James Episcopal Church, where he was a member. In the following decade, he won design awards for Two Creek Ranch Thoroughbred Center and the Fayette Health Services Center. Most recently, he designed the Second Chance Emporium resale store in La Grange. Outside of work, he was an avid tennis player and for many years a member of the La Grange Country Club.

A life-long learner with intellectual curiosity and passion for the built environment, Merritt never stopped exploring in countless hand sketches his far-ranging interests from ecotourism to space habitats until the very end of his life.

Funeral arrangements were entrusted to Koenig-Belvill Funeral Home & Cremations.

Friends can view and sign the guestbook online at www.lagrangefunerals.com.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 1 at St. James Episcopal Church in La Grange.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions in his name may be sent to St. James Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 507, La Grange, TX 78945.