Elliott was born in Woodstock, New York and attended Cooper Union. He trained with Welch, Smith & Provost in New York City and helped design buildings for the Jamestown Exposition of 1907 in Norfolk, Virginia. He came to Tampa in 1907 and soon had success winning design competitions for buildings including the Centro Asturiano de Tampa. Elliott wrote in his own obituary that he was born April 4, 1886, in the Catskill Mountains of Woodstock, New York and moved to New York City when he was 15. In the city he worked as an office clerk for an architectural firm. He eventually moved to Norfolk, Virginia where he designed buildings for the Jamestown Exposition. After the expo he moved to Tampa. Elliott retired in 1954 and died in 1967. Granddaughter Lynn Elliott Rydene is an interior designer in Tampa.
In 1922, Elliott designed the original Temple Terrace Country Club building, the Florida College Student Center, Real Estate Office, Chauffeurs Lodge and Garage, Greenskeepers House, Caddie Building, Spring House, Temple Terrace Grocery, Temple Terrace Service Station, Entry Tower gates, and the first eight villa residences for the original developers. All were designed in the Mediterranean Revival/Mission/Moorish architectural styles. The Temple Terrace Preservation Society has made efforts to preserve all of these through the creation of a Certified Local Government
The Club Morocco was the hottest nightclub on the west coast of Florida in the 1920s. It was part of the original Temple Terrace Estates, one of the first Mediterranean Revival golf course planned communities in the United States. According to the 1988 Temple Terrace Historic Resources Survey, both buildings are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. In the 1930s, after the Florida economic collapse of 1926, the property and its buildings were acquired by the Florida Bible Institute from the City of Temple Terrace, and were then sold to the founders of Florida College.
Work
Tampa City Hall at 315 John F. Kennedy Blvd A 3-story building with an 8-story tower. Includes doric columns, balustrade, and terra-cotta detailing. Perhaps the finest of the architect M. Leo Elliott's commercial-municipal structures. National Register listed in 1974.
Masonic Temple No. 25 The cornerstone of current building housing Hillsborough Lodge No. 25 Free & Accepted Masons was laid on June 18, 1928, by the Most Worshipful Grand Master of Florida, Cary B. Fish. The Lodge was constructed at its current location in Downtown Tampa, on the corner of East Kennedy Boulevard and Morgan Street. The first Masonic Lodge meeting in the new Temple was called on February 19, 1929. On September 11, 1986, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Brother Malachi Leo Elliot was a member of the Masonic Lodge.
