"If, by WW1, the Philly architects were so confident in their abilities, then why did they call on a Brit, CH Alison, to finish/fix the design of Pine Valley
Paul:
That's a very good question. God knows Pine Valley did have an inordinant amount of architects as members at that time---Flynn, Toomey, Thomas, Behr, Wilsons, Fownes etc. Maybe they didn't want to take sides and just wanted to get someone from outside the club.
But my sense is they hired Alison in 1921 because he was Colt's partner and the one representing the firm over here and also because they knew he was good. They didn't just hire Alison, they actually put him on the committee.
Right about that time Alison asked to partner with Flynn (maybe as a result of PV) but Wilson sort of put the kibosh on that saying Flynn didn't need him at that point. Some say Wilson planned to go into business with Flynn.
The club needs to recognize what-all Alison did in 1921 design-wise because it isn't insignificant. It also shows how wrong some of you guys were by saying that the club was trying to minimize or diss Colt following Crump's death and during some kind of ultra glorification of Crump.
Harry Colt was never dissed or minimized down there, not then anyway. That happened many decades later when a very simple research error was made, and made very innocently