John Mack

My life is pretty simple," says John Mack. "It's pretty linear. Doesn't have a lot of bends in it."

It's a fitting way for an architect to describe his life, but perhaps it's a bit humble in Mack's case -- unless spending much of a professional lifetime dedicated to restoring Rogers' downtown to its former bustling hive of activity can be considered "simple."

"John has an appreciation of the past, of the solid structures that stand through time," says close family friend Jim Swearingen. "I think they must speak to him of what matters and of what influences the present and dreams of the future: a sense of continuum though time. These edifices speak of community and of who we were and are and can be. John, in his work to preserve and celebrate, points us to our past, our present and our future."

Foundation

Mack's childhood was quintessentially mid-century rural Arkansas. He grew up in Rector in northeastern Arkansas, helping run a farm in nearby Greenway that had been in the family for generations. His father, Rue Clifton "Cupie" Mack, a statewide sports legend, was the first Arkansas State University student to be drafted by an NFL team, the Detroit Lions, which had meant turning down a recruitment effort by the Chicago White Sox. Despite his football career ending in disappointment when he was injured in a preseason training camp, one wonderful thing came out of his time in Detroit: He met Mack's mother, Ann, who followed Cupie back down to Arkansas to attend ASU and start a family. Both of Mack's parents worked in education for most of their careers. Both taught, and Cupie coached and, later in life, became the superintendent of Greenway schools.

In between their "regular" jobs, the family farmed. By the tender age of 6, Mack joined his two older sisters in the fields picking cotton, for which they were paid by the pound. The school year was split so that all of the kids in the area could help farm: School let out with other districts in May, but then started back up in the heat of July in Arkansas, windows open and fans blowing, only to shut down again in September for harvest. The money the Mack children made from their labor was spent on school clothes during the family's fall trips to Goldsmith's in Memphis.

"We also owned a cotton gin, and we would spend the day in the fields, and then go in at night and work in the gins, so it was a long day," he says. "I think working on a farm certainly teaches you a work ethic."

Mack reached high school with no clear idea about what kind of career he would pursue. The family propensity for farming and education wasn't generating a pull on him. When he started talking about architecture with Mr. Saunders --an architect who moved to Rector to oversee a federal housing project and the father of one of Mack's teachers -- he was hooked. He applied to the University of Arkansas' architecture program where E. Fay Jones was a member of the faculty.

"My senior year of high school, I wanted to see the school," he remembers. "For one thing, I had never been around architects, other than seeing Mr. Saunders work. I wasn't really familiar with it, so I came to Fayetteville to visit. I was walking through the architecture labs, and my mom was out in the foyer. Fay Jones came in and started talking to her, and she said to him, 'My son is going to take the exam and come to architecture school.' He said something like, 'Oh, is he from Little Rock? Or Southside Fort Smith?' And she said, 'No, he's from Rector.' And he said, 'Oh, OK. Well, has he had calculus?' And my mom says, 'They don't offer calculus in Rector.' And he says, 'What about drafting?' 'Well, they don't have drafting in Rector.' And he went through all of these things that we didn't offer at school, and Mom just looked at him. Finally, he said, 'He's going to have a real difficult time.'

"So, yes, I spent the first year learning what a T-square was. But I had great instructors who were very understanding."

Mack was a motivated student, and he worked hard to make up for lost time. The hours that weren't spent studying were spent at his on-campus job as a house boy for the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority, where he met a young sorority girl named Harriet Burns, "a very smart, very attractive young lady."

"[The job] was primarily serving meals," he recalls. "That's what we did. And then cleaning up afterwards. Harriet gets a big kick out of telling this story: When the house mother found out that I was dating Harriet, I got fired.

"I found another job, though. Not as a house boy."

Ground floor

Mack earned an internship at Perry Butcher and Associates in Rogers before he graduated, where he worked before entering the service. Commissioned a second lieutenant in 1973, Mack didn't make it overseas before the conflict ended (though he would remain in the active reserve for the next 10 years). Relieved that marching off to war was not in the picture, Mack and Harriet plotted their future together. The pair really wanted to move to San Francisco, but, says Mack, the oil embargo and the sinking economy meant few to no job opportunities in the expensive city. Mack and Harriet decided to stay put in Rogers. Harriet, a home economist for Benton County, already had a good job, and Mack returned to his position at Perry Butcher and Associates, which had been held for him. Eventually, he would become a partner in the firm. The two settled in to raise their children, sons Cooper and Hunter.

Shortly after making Rogers their home, Mack would become a permanent and enthusiastic supporter of regenerating the downtown Rogers' area. The family moved to a house not far from downtown, and Mack continued to work out of an office in the area: He is now a principal in JKJ Architects, which operates out of the same downtown building that housed Perry Butcher and Associates. Harriet would eventually open and run two retail stores downtown.

Mack had long had an interest in historical preservation, dating back to his classes with professor Cyrus Sutherland at the University of Arkansas.

"It was always an interest that [Professor Sutherland] had, and that a lot of us didn't in the late 1960s and 1970s," he says. "At that time, it wasn't really the prime focus that it has evolved to be. And the sense of urban space evolved into what we're doing now with the new urbanism, where you're recapturing downtown areas. That's what I think Rogers has been able to do, and with the Walton Foundation, their trail program that connects our communities and their involvement with downtown development in pursuing the new urbanism and sense of place, this walkability in communities -- what they've done is just phenomenal."

"He has a reputation as a 'downtown Rogers' guy," says John T. Hampton, chairman and chief executive of First Western Bank. Hampton -- whose bank made a commitment to open a downtown Rogers location -- hired Mack to renovate and build several First Western locations. He would later invite Mack to join the bank's Board of Directors. "He has always had this reputation. He is sold on it, and he puts his time, energy and his own money into what he believes in. It's not just a business -- it's a passion."

"It is hard to count the number of downtown buildings he has stabilized and renovated, either as an architect or as an owner/architect," says friend and colleague Sandra Wanasek. "He has had a hand in saving and restoring structures such as the American National Bank building on First Street, the Victory Theater, the expansion and renovation of the old F&M Bank building for his company's offices (now City Hall), the H.L. Stroud building -- where his office has been for most of his practice -- the old bus station, Hailey Ford ... [the list goes] on and on."

Mezzanine

Currently, Mack's firm is working on the renovation of the old Lane Hotel, which is soon to be home to a new Haas Hall charter school campus. He is excited about the prospect that the school -- and many of his other projects, which have included adding living spaces to the downtown area -- will create a more populated, active downtown, an option he considers vital to helping the town center regain its vitality.

"The sense of place that you get from living in an area like that -- there's a lot more interaction by walking, by visiting with people," he says. "You get a much stronger sense of community.

"Several hundred kids will be a part of the downtown community in the afternoon. Already, it's just fascinating to walk from where I park, basically by the caboose on Walnut Street, and walk a block to my office. Coming back, these kids are out there. They've got their video sets , their still photography. It's so great."

"The work John is doing on the Lane Hotel -- to this point in his career it's probably his crowning achievement," says family friend and colleague David Swearingen. "He has absolutely worked tirelessly on that project. Of course, he's got other stuff going on, too, but he's at work by 6 a.m. and works nights, works weekends ... I couldn't do it."

David also notes that Mack was instrumental in keeping First United Methodist Church downtown.

"We were convinced that we needed to do that, because, number ones, we felt like we needed a church downtown, and number two, if we didn't do that, the church would be gone. Torn down. We formed a strong alliance in putting that together. We bought the facility, restored it and maintained it and carried it forward. We both feel like churches are important to the fabric of the downtown area."

Friend and business partner Howard Slinkard was part of the effort to save the church, as well.

"When I first moved to Rogers, the downtown area was still pretty vibrant, with lots of retail businesses," Slinkard says. "But by the time the issue with the church came along, buildings had started to go dark. It concerned me that, if the church was lost, there wasn't much use for those buildings, and that [it] would contribute to the decline. That's one of the reasons we decided to fight [to] keep the church downtown."

And then there's the Opera House, perhaps Mack's greatest personal undertaking. In 2013, he and Harriet purchased the old performance space, which had been built in the late 1800s. Its original purpose as a performing venue ended in 1935, felled by the Depression and the advent of moving pictures. Mack has completed a lot of the exterior work already and is waiting for a break in his workload to continue. He has big plans for the space.

"What I have presented to the city so far is a mixed-use development of retail on the ground floor, a performing venue for about 275 people for the opera house proper, and then, on the second and third floor, on the corner building, will just be general offices," says Mack, whose research on the building revealed a fascinating and quirky history. The highlights include Thomas Edison giving a presentation about his various inventions there, Sitting Bull performing there, and, in a desperate bid to remain profitable, the Opera House carving a chunk out of the stage to create a boxing ring in the middle of it in 1928.

"I read that the most rowdy events were the Benton and Washington County grape growers association, the union coming together to set the price of grapes," Mack says with a chuckle. He's working on ways to save the "signature wall" in the green room -- a wall filled with signatures of all of the people who performed or presented at the space, from Rogers High School students to professional vaudeville performers.

"I am very much enjoying seeing his 'Opera House' project develop," says Wanasek. "John studies the various players and variations in the evolution of these structures and determines appropriate solutions to every scenario. It's a tough balancing act, being owner, architect and property manager, and it's very interesting watching him walk the tightrope between those three."

Top floor

Mack's impact on Rogers, though, goes far beyond his significant contributions to the downtown area. In addition to serving on the board of directors at First Western Bank, Mack has served lengthy stints on the boards of Main Street Rogers, the Historical Commission and Habitat for Humanity, where he continues work on their homes, store and headquarters. Harriet and Mack have formed a tight core of friendships in the neighborhood where they have lived for decades.

Friends and colleagues speak frequently and at length of Mack's affability, talent and loyalty.

"I asked him to go on our bank board of directors because he was a guy that has brought people together," says Hampton. "He creates harmony. He's really good at making people better as a team. He has been an excellent board employee."

"He is loyal," says Wanasek. "He cares deeply about his friends, neighbors, co-workers, fellow church members, downtown business people. John's sincerity is second to none. John and Harriet are not only an integral art of the spirit of our neighborhood, but they are also one of the driving forces of that spirit."

Some suspect that the desire to foster and be a part of the kind of community he experienced growing up has always been the inspiration behind Mack's work.

"We both grew up, as most of the people our age did, in smaller towns in Arkansas at a time when they were the center of the community and very vibrant and active," says Slinkard. "Maybe there's just that sense of place developed by that. In my own case, that's true, and I suspect it's probably true in John's case."

"Part of [the motivation behind] revitalizing downtown, I think, is part of John's sense of home," says Jim Swearingen. "We all want our family homes to be attractive and warm and welcoming. John is helping to do that downtown for all of us who call this place our home."

"Just think about it -- we're evolving back to what it was like in Rector, where I grew up," Mack says. "Saturday night, there were hundreds of people on the street, especially in the fall when the farmers would come in. They would be selling their cotton, or whatever, so they would be going into all of the stores they had bills at, paying their bills off. We had a little show down there and a theater, so there were a lot of different things going on."

He tells a story that Rogers Chamber of Commerce President Raymond Burns told him: Burns was showing a group of people who were considering relocating a company to Rogers around the city. At the end of the tour, a man in the group asked Burns to take him downtown, because, he said, he had learned that how people treat their downtown area is a reflection of who they are.

"That the history of a community is embedded so deep in the downtown area, that how you treat it says so much about your community spirit," says Mack. "That has always stuck in my head. [It's] what you're all about as a community."

NAN Profiles on 03/12/2017