Gerhardt Kramer was born October 26, 1909, in New Orleans, and graduated from Tulane University in 1930 with a bachelor’s degree in architecture. He attended graduate school at Cornell University where he received a master’s degree in architecture in 1931. After graduate school he did a brief stint of archaeological work in the Yucatan and later returned to New Orleans where he worked as an architect in the French Quarter. After serving in the navy during World War II, he moved to St. Louis, where he worked with fellow architects Theodore Steinmeyer and Hugo Graf. In 1953 he formed Gerhardt Kramer and Associates, and in 1956 he partnered with Joe Harms and began the firm of Kramer and Harms. Gerhardt Kramer is responsible for saving more than 20 historic structures in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He was one of the founding members of the Landmarks Association of St. Louis, Inc. (1958) and was president of the St. Louis chapter of the American Institute of Architects in the late 1950s. In 1987 he was awarded the chapter’s highest honor, the Golden Honor Award. He was a member of the Tower Grove Park Commission, the Kirkwood Historic Buildings Commission, and other local historic preservation committees. He died December 4, 2001.