Edward Giddings; Architect Inspired by Mexican Materials

Edward Giddings, a nonconformist Newport Beach architect who built his reputation designing expensive homes featuring natural Mexican building materials, has died. He was 64.

Giddings died of a heart attack Thursday in Cabo San Lucas. His wife, Patricia, said Tuesday that he had gone to their home there to attend a meeting.

A native of Seattle who was educated at the University of Washington, Giddings began his career as a draftsman for architectural firms. He got his break in 1960 when he went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on a skin-diving vacation and met a developer who invited him to design houses.

He created 16 lavish homes for wealthy Americans on the Mexican resort city’s Gold Coast--and met the New York native who became his wife. Under the name Paige Hall, Patricia Giddings designed interiors for his homes.

Design features of Giddings homes included hand-painted tiles from Pueblo, Mexico, rosewood lavatories from Puerto Vallarta, rough-textured redwood siding in baths, 18-foot-high Spanish entry doors, and two-story wine racks.

Giddings established his Newport Beach office in 1965 and continued designing posh homes for millionaire Texas oilmen, investors, businessmen, attorneys and actors such as David Janssen. He located the homes on Newport Beach’s plush Linda Isle, in Palm Springs and elsewhere in Southern California, as well as along Mexico’s west coast.

“My clients are knowledgeable people,” he once wryly told The Times. “If there is any flaw in the plans, they set me right.”

As his career progressed, Giddings also began designing and building resorts, such as the Club Cascadas de Baja in Cabo San Lucas and Ocho Cascadas in Puerto Vallarta.

His work was featured regularly in Architectural Digest and The Times’ now-defunct Home magazine and won numerous awards from the Orange County Chapter of the American Institute of Interior Design.

Giddings also was a popular artist; he studied at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. He exhibited his impressionist oil paintings at the Laguna Beach and La Jolla art museums and at galleries in San Bernardino and Santa Barbara.

In addition to his wife, Giddings is survived by a daughter, Ana, and five sons, Mark, Greg, David, Peter and John, all of Newport Beach; a sister, Shirley Miller of Albuquerque, N.M., and four grandchildren.

A memorial service is scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday at Pacific View Memorial, Corona del Mar.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Ariz., or to the American Heart Assn.