| Historic Name: |
Fulton Hotel/ Fulton Inn/ Totem Distributing Company |
Common Name: |
Old Fulton Hotel |
| Style: |
Commercial, Queen Anne - Richardsonian Romanesque |
Neighborhood: |
Pioneer Square |
| Built By: |
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Year Built: |
1890 |
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| Significance |
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In the opinion of the survey, this property is located in a potential historic districe (National and/or local). |
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Erected in 1890, this building was originally three stories and housed the Fulton Hotel (or Fulton Inn), which had 50 rooms and a basement. The building lost its upper floors, as did its neighbor, the Moses Building, as a result of the 1949 Earthquake and was remodeled. After its 1949, according to a photo from 1950, it was a one story concrete white building; however, the building must have been cleaned up again, because the original piers and cast-iron storefronts are now revealed. Despite the loss of the upper floors, the building retains a significant amount of its architectural integrity at the first level. The building is also important as an early building erected soon after the devastating Fire of 1889.
The building is also known as the location of the Linda Farris Art Gallery, which operated in Pioneer Square from the late 1960s to the 1980s.
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| Appearance |
| This is a one story building with brick walls and a basement. West and south elevations face the street. The western façade is divided into three bays by brick piers which sit on stone bases. Intermittent bands of stone appear among the courses of brick. Each bay has a cast-iron storefront with transom lights, divided into three sections by a central doorway framed by thin engaged round columns with Ionic capitals. The cast-iron columns have Ionic capitals on the western façade and plainer capitals (a sleek metal version of a cushion capital), which may originally also have had Ionic ornamentation over them, (as witnessed on the western façade, where one of the Ionic capitals is coming apart, revealing the other type of capital). New exposed I-beams act as lintels. The parapet has been rebuilt in concrete (now painted light reddish brown). Modern metal capitals with a somewhat fanciful design - including repeated trapezoidal sheets of metal welded to another flat trapezoidal shape, attached to the parapet - top the original piers.
The south elevation is less regular in design. It is divided into five sections or major bays by the typical brick piers with the first two western sections, subdivided into two bays by piers. The first half bay continues the storefront from the western façade and stops at the first pier. The fourth major bay section has a wooden storefront, probably of a later period, while the fifth and sixth bays have the more typical metal storefront, although the general height of the storefronts and their elements (columns, transoms) is lower, because of the change in grade. The second bay also has two square openings located toward the top of the wall.
The building lost its upper two floors as a result of the Earthquake of 1949 and originally presented a typical Victorian grid pattern on its façade, overlaid with Richardsonian Romanesque elements. Despite the loss of the upper two floors, the building retains significant elements of its architectural detailing and particularly its striking cast iron storefront. |
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