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Bebb grew up in Hinsdale IL. He studied engineering at the Universities of Wisconsin and Colorado, then earned a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University in 1928. He worked in Chicago for Armstrong, Furst & Tilton and for architect Philip Maher. In 1933, curator Philip Johnson included Bebb in MoMA's Work of Young Architects in the Middle West exhibition in New York. During WWII, Bebb served as a Major in the Army Corps of Engineers, including duty in Papua New Guinea. In 1950, Bebb moved to Gatlinburg TN and opened a practice in his basement, designing modernist houses, motels, restaurants, schools, churches, and civic buildings throughout east Tennessee. He partnered with engineer Raymond Olson as Bebb & Olson, and later collaborated with Hayes B. Fleming. His 1959 Clingmans Dome (now Kuwohi) Observation Tower in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1966, he founded Community Tectonics, which grew to offices in six east Tennessee cities. With partner William S. Denton, Bebb sketched the Sunsphere, the 266-foot theme tower of the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, photo below. After his death, Community Tectonics endowed a scholarship in his memory at the University of Tennessee School of Architecture. 2003 video on Bebb.
1950 - The Earl W. (Cap) Paine House, 312 Paine Lake Drive, Sevierville TN. Bebb's first residential commission in east Tennessee, designed before he arrived in Gatlinburg in 1950. Paine, a local businessman, served on the first board of directors of the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce. Was a rental. For sale in 2026.
1958 - The Senator Estes Kefauver House, 621 Grandview Avenue, Lookout Mountain TN. Vacation home and Tennessee base for US Senator Estes Kefauver, who hired Bebb & Olson after seeing a house the firm designed in Gatlinburg. Built by George Getter. Sold in the mid-1970s to Donald and Joanne Jensen. Sold in the mid-1990s to the Charles Megahee family who remodeled the interior.
1958 - The Lawson House, Gatlinburg TN. Address unknown.
1961 - The John Fiser House, Knoxville TN. A hexagonal 4600 sf lake house overlooking Fort Loudoun Lake, interiors by Jim Cleveland. Later additions brought it to around 10,000 sf. Bottom photo from the Knoxville News-Sentinel, June 28, 1964. Destroyed in 2012; many of the original materials were used in a new house on the site.
1965 - Ranch house, Seymour TN. Address and ownership history unknown.
1973 - The Ruppel House, aka The Castle, 345 Greystone Heights Road, Gatlinburg TN. Destroyed in the 2016 Gatlinburg wildfires.
Sources include: the Tennessee Encyclopedia; Mid Century Modern Tennessee; John Shearer, Chattanoogan, April 12, 2010; Smoky Mountain Modern: The Architecture of Hubert Bebb, by Greg Case.