Nave and his firm competed with other architectural firms in Lewiston and in
Spokane, Washington to get commissions to design public buildings, commercial blocks, and large homes. Nave's firm won a number of these commissions and is credited with 94 works between 1903 and 1923.[3] Nave made his reputation primarily through designing schools, although he also designed two churches: St. Stanislaus and Lewiston's Baptist Church.
According to Elizabeth Egleston, "By 1909 Nave was obtaining commissions for commercial and institutional buildings as his residential business declined. His institutional work was Georgian Revival, while his commercial commissions were completed in the Romanesque and Renaissance Revival styles. In her book, Building Idaho, Jennifer Eastman Attebery writes that Nave's work shows a preference for stone and a 'fragmented use of classical motifs.' This affinity for stonework is not surprising, given the fact that he owned a stone quarry in nearby
Clarkston [Washington], to which he devoted his energy after he left architectural work in 1933."[4]
the Bradford Building in
Clarkston, Washington, a three-story steel and glass commercial structure[9]
Personal life and death
Nave was married twice. After his first wife died, he married Mae Russell in 1937.[2] He had two sons and one daughter.[2] He died on October 6, 1949, in Lewiston, Idaho.[2]