Seattle Historical Sites

Summary for 101 S Jackson ST S / Parcel ID 5247800255 / Inv #

Historic Name: Western Dry Goods Company/ Wax and Raine Building Common Name: Heritage Building Style: Commercial Neighborhood: Pioneer Square Built By: Year Built: 1904   Significance In the opinion of the survey, this property is located in a potential historic districe (National and/or local). The Heritage Building was built as a warehouse in 1904. W. C. Talbot and Cyrus Walker, then heads of the Pope and Talbot Lumber Company, purchased the lot in 1899 and commissioned the building. The building remained in Pope and Talbot’s hands until 1943. Cyrus Walker, a very successful Puget Sound lumberman, was involved in real estate in Seattle. He was the head of the Puget Mill Company (founded in 1852) in Port Ludlow and later the head of the larger and related Pope and Talbot Lumber Company. He also developed other properties in the “burnt district.” He was the primary developer of the Marshall-Walker Building, now called the Globe Building and of the Seattle Quilt Building (originally the Walker Building), on First Avenue South, not far from the Heritage Building. He may also be responsible for the current “Al & Bob’s Saveway,” which is a one story building by Boone & Willcox, originally projected as a four story building and also called the “Walker Building,” in articles in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer at the time of its construction. By 1914, Welford Beaton’s The City That Made Itself shows a picture of the building with a caption that suggests that the building was known by the name of it tenant, the Western Dry Goods Company. The building was later known as the “Wax and Raine Building” and the “Standard Brands Building.” It continued to house the “Wax & Raine Standard Brands Store,” an outlet for “paint, linoleum, carpet, tile, formica, vinyl and ceramic tile,” in its ground level commercial space off Jackson Street into the 1960s.   Appearance The Heritage Building is a five story building with street facing elevations on Jackson Street and on First Avenue South. The building has a full basement in concrete and has a footprint of roughly 120 feet by 111 feet. Exterior walls are mainly of brick, with stone veneer – sandstone- on the First Avenue South and Jackson Street facades. Alley facing walls are of red brick. The Jackson Street façade is divided into five bays. It consists of storefronts with transom lights at the ground level. The First Avenue South elevation is divided into six bays, and continues the Jackson Street storefront in its north bay. On both facades, the second, third and fourth floors have wide trabeated openings. A projecting stone belt-course occurs above the ground floor level and another just above the fourth floor windows. Between the first and second belt course, each vertical bay is slightly recessed and emphasized at the top by dentils or repeated stone squares just below the second belt course. The top level of the facades reads as a loggia, with each bay composed of a horizontal row of three separate trabeated openings framed by short columns (rectangular in plan), with simple bases and capitals. Engaged pilasters in the same design are set at the corners of the facades. The stone cladding also turns the corner from Jackson Street to the east façade and stops a few feet in, where red brick takes over. Topping both facades is a generous projecting cornice in stone with underneath a row of frequent modillions. The First Avenue South elevation is detailed in the same manner as the Jackson Street façade on the floors above the ground level. The ground level has the following openings: the north bay has storefront; following this are two recessed bays, each with two smaller rectangular windows with stone sills. The fourth and fifth bays are mainly storefront and the sixth bay (to the south) has a single opening again with a stone sill. The building stands out in the simplicity and unity of its classical design and also in the relative richness of its cladding, since the building is entirely clad on Jackson Street as well as First Avenue in stone. The restoration by NBBJ done in 1982, has retained the historic appearance of the building, aside from changes at the storefront level. The storefronts in the fourth and fifth bays on First Avenue South are reconstructions, based on the original storefronts, as is the lower section of the north bay storefront and at least one of the storefronts and the entry on Jackson Street. The interior spaces were reconfigured to meet code and to serve the needs of the NBBJ headquarters.

Detail for 101 S Jackson ST S / Parcel ID 5247800255 / Inv #

Status: Yes - Inventory Classication: Building District Status: NR, LR Cladding(s): Brick, Stone - Ashlar/cut Foundation(s): Concrete - Poured Roof Type(s): Flat with Parapet Roof Material(s): Asphalt/Composition Building Type: Commercial/Trade - Warehouse Plan: Rectangular Structural System: Masonry - Unreinforced No. of Stories: five Unit Theme(s): Architecture/Landscape Architecture, Commerce, Manufacturing/Industry Integrity Changes to Plan: Intact Changes to Original Cladding: Slight Changes to Windows: Moderate Storefront: Moderate Major Bibliographic References King County Tax Assessor Records, ca. 1932-1972. Beaton, Welford. The City That Made Itself, A Literary and Pictorial Record of the Building of Seattle. Seattle: Terminal Publishing Company, 1914. “Heritage Building – 101 South Jackson Street, Historic Preservation Certification Application – Part 1,” 17 May, 1982. “Pope and Talbot, Our Company History.” Database on-line. Available from http://www.poptal.com/about/history.htm Lange, Greg and Tim O’Brian. “Virtual Pioneer Square,” unpublished manuscript, 27 October 1996. City of Seattle, Department of Neighborhoods, Historic Preservation Program files. Ochsner, Jeffrey and Dennis Andersen. Distant Corner: Seattle Architects and The Legacy of H. H. Richardson. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2004.

Photo collection for 101 S Jackson ST S / Parcel ID 5247800255 / Inv #

Photo taken May 24, 2004