William J. Dodd

William James Dodd (1862–1930) was an American architect and designer who worked mainly in Louisville, Kentucky from 1886 through the end of 1912 and in Los Angeles, California from early 1913 until his death. Dodd rose from the so-called First Chicago School of architecture, though of greater influence for his mature designs was the classical aesthetic of the Beaux-Arts style ascendant after the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. His design work also included functional and decorative architectural glass and ceramics, furniture, home appliances, and literary illustration.

In a prodigious career lasting more than 40 years, Dodd left many structures that are still standing on both east and west coasts and in the midwest and upper south of the United States, among the best known of these being the original Presbyterian Seminary campus (now Jefferson Community & Technical College), the Weissinger-Gaulbert Apartments, and the old YMCA building, all three in downtown Louisville facing Broadway. Also notable are his numerous residential and ecclesiastical designs, restored and in continuous use in Kentucky and Tennessee. In California, examples of his extant work include the Pacific Center and Hearst's Los Angeles Herald-Examiner Building in downtown Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse south of Pasadena as well as residences across Los Angeles, in the Pacific Palisades, in Altadena and more distantly in Palm Springs. Some of the earliest attributed and oldest designs of his career may be found in Hyde Park, Chicago.