Mark:
If you are looking into the life and times of Robert Hunter--and he is certainly one worth looking into, you should simultaneously look into the life and times of a few others that would have been his contemporaries. Most were very familiar with each other--sort of a collaborative group probably!
All, in my opinion certainly, should be considered "renaissance men". Not only were they interested in architecture and all extraordinary thinkers and writers on same, but they were also very interested and adept at other and unusual things vis-a-vis architecture. That group, with Hunter, would include George Thomas!!, Max Behr!!, probably Leeds, Fowler, A. Tillinghast, MacKenzie, Macdonald, Colt (maybe Maxwell) and maybe even Marion Hollins and even George Crump in a slightly different way.
These people were remarkable really for their diversity as well as their outlook on golf architecture. One might say they lived, thought, wrote and worked in a very different time in architecture, one that had none of the preconceptions of today. They were early and because of that probably felt the need to not only create but to educate American golfers. They were early enough that they probably felt that doing so would popularize the game itself in America.
That luxury doesn't seem to exist anymore. There are so many preconceptions among American golfers now that most of the current practitioners probably just feel the need to give Americans what they think they want! It's a business now and was a business then but back then there was much more freedom of expression because of the lack of preconceptions. And they certainly were expressive thinkers and writers!