Breaking barriers: The love story and legacy of Atlanta's trailblazing architects

Some of Atlanta's notable structures were designed by a devoted couple who broke barriers.

Bill Stanley and Ivenue Love-Stanley were the first Black College of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology graduates after the school desegregated in 1961.

CBS Atlanta's Leondra Head spoke to the couple about how their love story and architecture journey began.

"I needed to make sure that all the boys on campus knew that she was off limits," Stanley said.

The couple first met and fell in love on the campus of Georgia Tech.

"I was the first Black student to graduate from the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech in 1972," Stanley said.

"I was the first Black woman to graduate from the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech," Love-Stanley said.

"It was a very rigorous school and a school that was largely isolated because there was just a handful of us (Black people) there at that time. We formed a pack and developed the GA Tech Afro American Association," Stanley said.

Soon after they married, the couple started their own architectural firm, Stanley, Love-Stanley PC, in 1978.

"We worked so well together. We had the same work ethic," Stanley said.

Their firm designed the 1996 Olympic aquatic center alongside the Smallwood, Reynolds, and Stewart architecture firm.

"We were chosen to do the Olympic aquatic center in a 50/50 joint venture. The president of Georgia Tech at the time decided we needed to have joint ventures that were meaningful. He wanted to have Black and White firms work together on the aquatic center," Stanley said.

Their firm was also a part of a 3-way joint venture that designed the canopy over Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

"Everyone loves the canopy," Love-Stanley said.

The Stanleys also designed the New Horizon sanctuary at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

"We designed another building, another church across the church, which was not Gothic or married to the old building. But was Afro-centric," Stanley said.

Their design work can also be seen at local HBCUs.

"We did the cottage at Spelman, which is the President's Mansion. John Hope Hall at Morehouse, Mays Memorial at Morehouse, the Biology building at Clark Atlanta, Trevor Arnett Hall at Clark Atlanta," Stanley said.

The pair says competing for architectural contracts isn't easy.

"It's a very competitive marketplace. We compete for everything. We have to submit proposals on every project that we have received. No one just hands you a project, from the churches we design to the schools," Ivenue Love- Stanley said.

Early on when the Stanleys started their firm, they designed libraries such as the Southwest Branch Library, which was later renamed the Evelyn Lowery Library, and the Peachtree Street Branch Library, both in Atlanta.

The firm has steady work, employing 8 staff members, including project designers working on upcoming projects.

Stanley says Stanley, Love-Stanley PC gives scholarships and internships to Black Georgia Tech students.

"Every year, we give a grant to the most improved student of African descent. We give them a scholarship and an internship with us," Bill Stanley said.

Stanley says it's awarded to one undergraduate student and one graduate student each year.  

77-year old Bill Stanley and 73-year old Ivenue Love-Stanley show no signs of slowing down.

"People ask me, 'How come you don't retire?' I say you retire from a job. You don't retire from a practice or a calling.  We love what we do, we're committed, and we're good at it," Stanley said.

48 years later, the Stanleys continue building their legacy one design at a time.

A spokesperson for the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport says Stanley's firm is in the process of designing an exhibit in concourse D to honor Michael Hollis, the owner of Air Atlanta, a black-owned airline in the 1980's.