EARL J. ANDREWS is a Cleveland architect and builder, reference to whose career and work and methods will be greatly appreciated.  Mr. Andrews has a rather distinct position among the architects and builders of Cleveland, and for a number of years his name has been associated with nothing but the very highest class of residential buildings.
     Mr. Andrews was born at Wilmington, Clinton County, Ohio, Nov. 16, 1882.  Few citizens of Cleveland have their Americanism rooted farther back in the past than Mr. Andrews.  It is said that some of his ancestors came over with or at the time of the Mayflower.  Comparatively speaking the family is of equal antiquity in Ohio.  People of the name located in Clinton County about 1801, before Ohio became a state.  The Andrews were Friends and established a Friends settlement at Wilmington, along with Jackson, Garner and the Moon families, who have lived there for more than a century, have married and intermarried, and the generations have become so closely knit that nearly everyone in that community is now related directly or remotely.  The grandfather, Jonathan Andrews, was born on an old homestead which has been in the ownership of members of the Andrews family since the Government gave the first title deed to the land.  This old homestead is now the home of William Garner and Rachel (Jackson) Andrews, parents of the Cleveland architect.  Both were born in that locality and William G. Andrews was for many years a grain merchant.  He was also a farmer by training and experience, and in 1892 removed to Marion, Indiana, where he was a hay and grain shipper for many years.  He retired from active business in 1912 and settled at the old homestead in Clinton County, Ohio.  There are just two sons in the family, and the older is Clifton G. Andrews, who lives at Kokomo, Indiana.  He is one of the constructing engineers for the United States Steel Company.
     Earl J. Andrews was educated in the public schools of Wilmington, graduated from Wilmington High School with the class of 1900, is a graduate of Ohio State University with the class of 1904, and from there went to New York and studied technical courses in the New York Technical School.  He also enjoyed considerable training and had the inspiration of the splendid work done in the offices of Andrews & White, architects of New York City.  He was with that firm eighteen months.  The head of that firm, who is now retired, one of the best known of American architects, was a cousin of Earl J. Andrews while the junior member of the firm was the late Stanford White.
     Prior to this time Mr. Andrews had served an apprenticeship at the carpenter's trade in Cleveland during his summer vacations.  He had finished the trade in 1903 and at the same time he studied alone in drawing and designing and thus laid a thorough practical groundwork for the technical education and training which he afterwards acquired in the East. 
     In the latter part of 1905 Mr. Andrews established himself in business at Cleveland and his present offices are in the Citizens Building.  He is the only architect of any consequence in Cleveland, who does his own building, and in fact he was the first Cleveland architect to dispense with sub-contractors and other intermediaries who are so often responsible for expensive delays and that weakness which is always present more or less where there is lack of concentration of responsibility.  Mr. Andrews as both architect and builder employs his own labor, furnishes material, and makes himself responsible for every detail of any given building plan and contract.  One of the greatest advantages of this method to his clients is the elimination of annoyance due to dealing with a number of contractors who are practically unco-ordinated under any central plan and supervision.  During the early years of his work in Cleveland Mr. Andrews built 100 high grade homes in the neighborhood of Wade Park.  Sixty of these homes cost all the way from $25,000 to $80,000 apiece.  For the past ten years he has specialized and worked exclusively with "homes of quality" and handles practically no contract involving less than $25,000, and from that all the way up to the most lavish sums spent upon private residences.  He has built 136 homes in Cleveland, representing a total investment of over $2,000,000.  Mr. Andrews' entire work has been concentrated in Cleveland, and only once has he gone beyond the city limits to construct a building.  This exception was his father's new home at Wilmington on the old homestead.  Mr. Andrews has been busied not only with the designing and carrying out of all these contracts but has carefully studied every feature of the building industry as it affects high class homes, and he has introduced many important modifications and improvements on plans that will insure greater comfort and convenience to all who live in and occupy his residences, from the owners down to the servants.  He has the enviable distinction of never having once failed to deliver a home complete at the specified time.  The secret of his promptness and efficiency has been an absolute command of all trades involved in construction, in other words complete centralized authority and responsibility.
     Mr. Andrews is a member of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, the Cleveland Builders' Exchange, the Civic League, is an honorary member of the Tippecanoe Club, a member of the Cleveland Manufacturers' Club, the Shaker Heights Country Club, the Willowick Country Club, the Cleveland Athletic Club and the Cleveland Automobile Club.  In Masonry he is affiliated with Woodward Lodge No. 508, Free and Accepted Masons; McKinley Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; Coeur de Leon Commandery, Knights Templar; Al Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine, and belongs to Cleveland Lodge No. 18 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.  His winter recreation is bowling.  In the summer he divides his time between baseball and golf.  He docs his own bowling with the Elks' Lodge and for several years has financially backed one of the best bowling teams in the city, known as "The Andrews Builders."  He has also maintained a baseball club in Cleveland under the same name for some seasons.  Mr. Andrews was brought up in the faith of the Friends Church of his ancestors but is now affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church of Cleveland. Someone has called Mr. Andrews a thirty-third degree baseball fan and it is known that he is one of the regular season box holders at the Cleveland Ball Park and is said not to have missed a local game of the Cleveland team for six years.
     He and his family reside at 2170 South Overlook Road.  On Apr. 10, 1904, he married Miss Birdette Wertenberger of Canton, Ohio, where she was born and educated.  Mrs. Andrews is a graduate of the Canton High School and of Heidelberg University at Tiffin.
Source: History of Cleveland and its Environs - The Heart of New Connecticut - Publ. The Lewis Publishing Company - Chicago and New York - 1918 - Page 363 - Vol. 2