Seemingly content as an avid outdoorsman and self-proclaimed drifter, William Adair Bernoudy first considered a serious career in architecture only after a friend suggested he apply for an apprenticeship under America's architectural visionary Frank Lloyd Wright.  Selected to join a group of some thirty variously employed professionals in 1929, Bernoudy found himself enchanted with Wright's progressive philosophical views of architecture and first-hand knowledge of natural building materials.  In 1936, Bernoudy returned to St. Louis to work for the United States Historic American Building Survey and, at times, as a landscape gardener.  It was during this time, that Bernoudy joined creative forces with Edouard Mutrux.  In 1940, they jointly built an imaginative and innovative modern house that received national recognition.  After military service during the Second World War, Bernoudy, Mutrux and Henry H. Bauer started an architectural practice.  This practice experienced a tremendous boom in the expanding housing market of the 1950s and their collaborative architectural designs were both easily recognizable and widely imitated.  A decline in the housing market in the early 1960s eventually brought about the ultimate break up of this partnership in 1965.  From that point forward, Bernoudy dazzled his admirers with exceptionally enticing designs that often melded architecture, interior design, and landscaping into a single expressive composition.