Date/place of birth:
2 September 1902
Rochester, New York
Date/place of death:
15 April 1971
Ft. Myers, Florida
Relationship to the
college:
Instructor of Contracting and Building Construction
1942-43
1943 summer
1943-44 (fall)
1944 summer
1944-45 (fall, spring)
1945 summer
1945 fall
Profession:
Small house designer
Building contractor
Accountant
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 Horace McGuire “Mac” Wood was reared in Rochester, New York, and received
his B.A. degree in in Art and Aesthetics from Antioch College in 1928.
After his graduation until 1939, he was had his own business designing and
building small houses in Rochester, New York, and Delray Beach, Florida.
He also worked as an accountant, a superintendent of construction, as
supervisor of salvage work for Delray Beach, Florida, and doing lofting and
pattern layout for Universal Moulding Products Corp. of Bristol, Virginia
and East Rocherster, New York.
Recommended by his friend Gorman Mattison, also a former Antioch student,
who had been appointed to teach business and advertising in the fall of
1942, Wood visited the college in August 1942, and in September he was
appointed Instructor of Contracting and Building Construction at Black
Mountain College. For the most part, he remained at the college through December 1945 holding
various positions including Instructor of Contracting, Director of the
Work Program, Assistant Treasurer, and Maintenance Supervisor. He spent
three weeks in the summer of 1943 in Pittsfield, New York doing volunteer war
work and small architectural projects for old clients. He returned to the
college in the fall but spent the winter and spring quarters, when there
was little work for him at the college, in Winter Park, Florida,
recovering from illness.
Wood’s presence at Black Mountain was invaluable to the college during the
war years when the college was undertaking small construction projects,
struggling to maintain existing buildings, and completing various projects
begun when it moved to Lake Eden in 1941. He designed the extension to
South Lodge and other small projects. He taught classes in contracting and
small house design.
In the winter of 1944 Wood wrote to the college that if there was not work
for him at the college, he planned to settle in the Black Mountain area.
“My first love,” he wrote, “is the design and building of homes and other
light construction.” From 1946 through 1964 he designed and built many
modest,affordable homes in Black Mountain and North Fork, North Carolina. One house built
in the shape of a corn crib.
When they left Black Mountain, Mac and Emily Woods moved to the village of Black
Mountain where he was active in the community Chamber of Commerce, Public
Library, and Community Center. He was treasurer of the North Carolina State
Humane Society.
After suffering a stroke in 1965, he and Emily Wood spent the winters on
Sanibel Island, near Ft. Myers, Florida.
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