Chas. T. Willis Building

 office building  Add category

144-foot, 12-story office building completed in 1911. Designed by James B. Baker, it has a 2-story gold/tan-painted stone base with Greek-fret patterns at the edges framing a large 2-story segmental-arched bay. The ground floor has an entrance to the upper floors at the left, and an entrance to the storefront at the right, with a modern storefront of glass, silver metal and translucent panels in the center. A very broad, white marble band separates the two floors. The 2nd story has five windows just below the arch, which is topped by a wide, decorative carving below a cornice and rounded band course with spiral and foliate moldings. Fruit pendants hang down from the tops of the piers at the edges. It was formerly occupied by the offices of Chas. T. Willis, Builders.

The transitional 3rd floor is clad in limestone, with coursed outer piers, and rounded Doric columns separating the three bays. The outer piers are decorated with projecting, fluted half-columns with gargoyle-like tops, and in the center of the entablature above the 3rd floor is a carved panel and two brackets supporting a small balcony with iron railings at the 4th floor.

The upper floors are clad in grey brick, with paneling on the two inner piers. The spandrels between the floors in each bay have stone sills and lintels, and projecting brick boxes centered on each spandrel panel. Above the 9th floor are stone balconies at each bay, and pendants at the outer piers. Another set of pendants decorates the outer piers at the top floor, supporting a stone cornice surmounted by a stone roof parapet. The northern elevation is clad in plain beige brick, with four bays of windows near the front, and five bays of paired windows at the rear.

The ground floor is occupied by Sterling Stone wholesale/imports.

hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044029398955?urlappend=%3Bseq...