In 1970, as I was completing my architecture graduate program at the University of Oregon, I began the familiar rite of passage known as the job search. Back then, that meant walking up to an actual bulletin board tacked with paper listings. One notice in particular caught my eye: a design department manager position with Brooks Resources in Bend, Oregon. I had visited Bend a few times in high school but knew very little about the community. Still, I applied — and was hired.
I wasn’t a fisherman. I wasn’t a hunter. I had skied perhaps twice in my life. So the typical Central Oregon recreational magnets weren’t what drew me east of the mountains. I simply needed a job — specifically one that would earn me enough apprenticeship credits to qualify for the Oregon architectural licensing exam.
At Brooks Resources, I managed a small design operation of two or three people. We provided residential design services for early buyers at the fledgling Black Butte Ranch resort, assisted with designs in various other Brooks developments, and served as liaisons to new property owners at the beginning of their journey with the developer.
Settling In
After about four years in Bend, my wife, Linda, and I felt thoroughly settled. We bought a home, welcomed a daughter, Erica, and found ourselves surrounded by a tight circle of friends. Having both grown up in McMinnville, we were no strangers to small-town life, but Bend — with its abundant sunshine and significantly less rainfall — was a refreshing variation on the theme.
Bend was beginning to attract a wave of young professionals, in part due to the emergence of Brooks Resources out of Brooks-Scanlon. Social gatherings were plentiful, and social hierarchy was absent. Lawyers, farmers, mechanics, and physicians all circled around the same keg, with no distinctions necessary.
By the end of my fourth year, however, I had exhausted the apprenticeship credits I could earn working for a developer. I still needed another three to four months under the direct supervision of a licensed architect. While searching for such an opportunity, I opened my own business — Design Depot — offering architectural support services. Around that time, our son, Andrew, arrived as well.
Apprenticeship, New Partnerships and the Early Years of Practice
An opportunity soon emerged to complete my apprenticeship with Hall, Goodhue and Haisley, a San Francisco/Monterey firm that had been providing services to Brooks Resources. I spent four months in Monterey finishing my required hours while Linda and our two small children stayed home in Bend.
Just as I was nearing licensure, architect Dave Waldron reached out about forming a new partnership. He’d contacted several architects and almost-architects, and in 1976 the firm of Waldron Huston Barber (WHB) was born, with architect and Bend native Ron Barber joining the partnership. Our first office was in the O’Kane Building on Oregon Avenue. Within a few years, we purchased and converted the historic Baehr residence at 974 NW Riverside Blvd. — today the home of Bend Magazine.
By the early 1980s, partnership differences and an economic downturn pushed Ron and me to regroup as Huston Barber. We operated out of a small office in the Deschutes Business Park and, slowly but steadily, worked our way through the slump.
During that period, two former WHB employees — Jim Barrett and Todd Turner — earned their licenses. They approached us about joining forces just as the local economy was beginning to show signs of life again. That collaboration became Huston Barber Barrett Turner (HBBT). We first occupied a second-floor space on Wall Street, next door to Pastries by Hans, and later relocated to the lower level of the renovated Old Bend Post Office at Wall and Franklin as part of an agreement tied to the building’s remodel.
A Fresh Start and the CAD Era
By 1988, partners’ goals and priorities were shifting — including my own. I felt it was time for both personal and professional change. That year I founded Neal Huston & Associates Architects (NHA), initially occupying the same Wall Street space used by HBBT. Beginning again from scratch was daunting enough, but this period also marked the transition from hand-drafted drawings to the then-revolutionary world of CAD.
Not long after launching NHA, we teamed up with the Ralston Group to develop Bend’s first office condominium, located in the Mt. Bachelor Village business park. As the firm grew, we built and occupied part of another building on a neighboring lot.
Then came the 2008 recession. Like many others, we made the decision to permanently downsize and relocate. The Old Mill District became our new home, where NHA has happily — and productively — operated for more than a decade.
Reflections on Bend’s Transformations
When we moved to Bend, its population could have filled the Hayden Homes Amphitheater perhaps one and a half times. Today, it exceeds 100,000. Change was inevitable — and it has arrived in abundance. Most would agree that the growth in ethnic and cultural diversity has enriched the community. On the other hand, the increased social and economic stratification feels like a loss to many of us who remember the Bend of earlier decades.
As Bend continues to evolve, those of us who have long called Central Oregon home hope for development that is progressive yet rooted — architecture that doesn’t feel like it could exist anywhere, but rather something that reflects, celebrates, and elevates the essence of this extraordinary place.
