Lehman A. "Monk" Ferris was born in 1893 in San Jose, California. His father was a gunslinging sign painter in his early days, who later became an architect. His mother was from a pioneer family which emigrated from St. Louis, Missouri to Watsonville, California in a wagon train. From Watsonville, the Ferris family moved to Colorado and then back to Pacific Grove, California, finally moving to Reno in 1906. Northern Nevada has been Mr. Ferris's home since that time.

Mr. Ferris studied electrical engineering at the University of Nevada, but family financial problems interrupted his studies in his junior year. He then became a mine electrician at the Nevada Hills mine, and after losing a thumb in a mine accident he went to McGill with a survey crew. Before long he became a draftsman and later went to work as a specifications writer and superintendent of construction. Eventually Ferris went into partnership with his father as an architect; the Depression forced the dissolution of their firm in 1932.

After a variety of construction-related jobs he became the Reno Building Inspector in 1935, and started to develop an architectural practice in the evenings. In 1945 he again took up the practice of architecture full time, eventually forming a partnership with Graham Erskine. His firm designed Reno High School, Wooster High, Hug High, the Legislative Building in Carson City, and Harolds Club.

As a result of his experience with the construction industry, Mr. Ferris became interested in building codes and in the International Association of Building Officials, the organization responsible for developing the Uniform Building Code. He was active in this organization for many years and was president for two years starting in 1939. He was instrumental in getting the Uniform Building Code adopted in Reno. Ferris was the first chairman of the Nevada State Board of Architecture, and as such he has Architectural License No. 1 in the state of Nevada.

Mr. Ferris had the opportunity to observe the construction industry evolve. In his oral history, he details building construction practices and the development of the architectural and engineering professions in northern Nevada during the early and mid-1900s.