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This article is based on Roger G. Reed’s biography of John P. Thomas in the Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Maine.

John Pickering Thomas (1886-1944) was born in Portland in 1886 and grew up on Deering Street near his grandfather William Widgery Thomas, a noted diplomat. Thomas attended Milton Academy and Harvard University, graduating in 1909. He then studied at Harvard’s School of Architecture. Between October 1912 and April 1913, he traveled in Europe, spending much of his time in Italy. Upon returning to Boston, he worked on the new MIT campus for architect Welles Bosworth. By 1914 Thomas had joined the firm of Wait and Copeland in Boston.

John P. Thomas served in the navy during World War I. After his discharge in 1919, he established his own office in Portland, where he practiced until the beginning of World War II. Soon after opening his office, Thomas formed a partnership with Charles O. Poor, a former draftsman for Frederick A. Tompson. This short-lived partnership ended with Poor’s accidental death in 1922.
John P. Thomas was a highly accomplished designer who favored the Georgian Revival style for commercial buildings such as the United States Trust Company Bank in Fryeburg (1922), the Fidelity Trust Company Bank in South Portland (1928), the Canal Bank in Portland (1930), and the Fidelity Trust Company Bank in Brunswick (1931). Other examples of the architect’s work in this style are the YMCA (1925-26) and the Maine Publicity Bureau (1936), both in Portland. His 1930 reconstruction of the William P. Viles House in Augusta was inspired by the classicism of the American Greek Revival style.

Thomas was at his best when designing in the English Tudor style. Notable examples are Deering High School (1922-23) and the Chestnut Street Methodist Church Community House (1924), both in Portland. He excelled in using the style to create imposing brick and stone residences for such influential individuals as Robert P. Hazzard, Jr. in Gardiner, Harry M. Verrill in North Windham, Spaulding Bisbee in Cumberland, and Walter G. Davis, Guy P. Gannett, and Henry P. Rines, in Cape Elizabeth. These homes are distinctive interpretations of Tudor period country houses. They represent major examples of residential architecture built by men of wealth during the boom years of the 1920s.

For John P. Thomas, who planned banks and palatial homes, the Great Depression of the 1930s brought difficult times that resulted in fewer commissions and a reduced office staff. Two of his largest projects in this period, the Maine Publicity Bureau and the Quoddy Village housing development in Eastport, were Federally financed through the New Deal. As a naval reserve officer, Thomas served in naval intelligence in Portland during World War II. In this capacity, he died in 1944 at the age of fifty-eight.