[4] Adopting Neutra's modernist sensibility, Harris merged the vernacular of California with a sensitivity to site and materials characteristic of the American Arts & Crafts Movement.
In his residential work of the 1930s and 1940s, primarily in California, Harris created a tension and a continuum between exterior and interior with continuous rooflines.
Learning from Frank Lloyd Wright, he designed interior spaces that are often based on the cruciform plan.
He retired from teaching in 1973 but continued to practice architecture from his home studio in Raleigh until shortly before his death there on November 18, 1990.
His home and studio at Raleigh, the Harwell Hamilton and Jean Bangs Harris House and Office, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.