Seattle Historical Sites

Summary for 618 2nd AVE / Parcel ID 0939000080 / Inv #

Historic Name: Alaska Building Common Name: Alaska Building Style: Beaux Arts - American Renaissance 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 Alaska Building was completed in 1904, after eleven months of construction. It was designed by Eames and Young, a St. Louis architecture firm with Saunders and Lawton, as supervising architects. The contractor was James Black Masonry Construction Company. In its day, it was the first steel frame building of any height in the Northwest and Seattle’s first skyscraper. It remained Seattle’s tallest building for ten years after it was built. It was designed with terra cotta cladding and in a style inspired by the Beaux Arts, which is somewhat rare for Seattle (although the Frye Hotel is another major Beaux Arts example in the Pioneer Square-Skid Road National Historic District). The building dates from a period of economic and industrial growth, 1900-1910, in the heart of Seattle and in the city as a whole. The history behind the building’s construction is of note. In 1903, J. E. Chilberg, Jafet Lindeberg and other stockholders of the Scandinavian-American Bank, purchased the southeast corner of the Second and Cherry from the Amos Brown Estate for $ 250,000. They intended to erect a building for the Scandinavian- American Bank. Shortly after the purchase of the land, however, J. C. Marmaduke of St. Louis made a proposition to J. E. Chilberg and they decided to jointly erect the fourteen story steel frame Alaska Building. The top penthouse level housed the Alaskan Club, founded to promote business ventures between Alaska and the Pacific Northwest and as a social club. About four years later, a similar club, the Arctic Club, formed as a result of the merger of the Arctic Brotherhood and of the Alaska Club, would erect a building for itself at Third Avenue and Jefferson Street, now the Morrison Hotel. The Alaska Building was restored by architects Stickney Murphy in 1982.   Appearance The Alaska Building is a fourteen story building located on the southeast corner of Second Avenue and Cherry Street. Its footprint occupies an entire quarter block, a rectangle approximately 74 feet by 50 feet. Above the ground level base and the basement of the building, the remaining stories form an L-shaped plan with an interior court to the southwest. The building has a steel frame and reinforced concrete structure, covered with various veneers. The two-story base is mainly clad in light matte terra cotta veneer, followed by eleven stories clad in buff brick veneer and the top story in matte terra cotta. A projecting belt-course separates the base of the building from the upper floors and a second belt-course separates the top level from the brick clad stories just below. The eleven stories consist of vertical bays, usually with two separate window openings per floor on the inner bays, and a large single trabeated opening at the end bays on Second Avenue and on Cherry Street. The inner bays are framed by tall piers, with smooth capitals and a simple appended ornament at the center of the flat capital. The “top” of the building at the fourteenth level has trabeated openings surmounted by circular openings and a projecting cornice with a dentil band and an egg-and-dart band below it. Aside from the height of the building, its most striking features are the ornate Beaux Arts ornamental bas-reliefs at the base of the building and at the top level. The ornamentation of the bottom two floors of the building facing the street consists of repeated terra cotta panels showing: interlocking geometrical shapes, angel heads with wings, serpents entwined around a torch with horns of plenty, placed symmetrically to each side of the torch. These are topped by scroll-like shapes set to each side of a rounded shape with a lion’s head above it. Spandrels above storefronts tend to be ornamented in a simpler fashion with terra cotta panels covering the lintel above each storefront. Often a medallion with a leafy frame is set at the center of these panels. The frame of the main doorway on Second Avenue is also ornate and includes a projecting entablature with large ornate brackets to each side. The style of the building is typical of the Beaux Arts. The building is also notable for its lobby, which has marble veneer on walls as well as on the ceiling.

Detail for 618 2nd AVE / Parcel ID 0939000080 / Inv #

Status: Yes - Inventory Classication: Building District Status: NR, LR Cladding(s): Brick, Concrete, Terra cotta Foundation(s): Concrete - Poured Roof Type(s): Flat with Parapet Roof Material(s): Asphalt/Composition, Unknown Building Type: Social - Clubhouse Plan: Rectangular Structural System: Steel No. of Stories: fourteen Unit Theme(s): Architecture/Landscape Architecture, Commerce, Science & Engineering, Social Movements & Organizations Integrity Changes to Windows: Intact Changes to Plan: Intact Storefront: Moderate Changes to Original Cladding: Intact Major Bibliographic References King County Tax Assessor Records, ca. 1932-1972. Beaton, Welford. The City That Made Itself. Seattle: Terminal Publishing Company, 1914. “The Alaska Building, Historic Preservation Certification Application, Part 1,” n.d. OAHP, State of Washington, Olympia, Washington, Microfiche File. Bagley, Clarence. History of Seattle from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time. 3 vols. Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1916. Sayre, J. Willis. This City of Ours. Seattle: Seattle School District No. 1, 1936.

Photo collection for 618 2nd AVE / Parcel ID 0939000080 / Inv #

Photo taken Jun 09, 2004 Photo taken May 24, 2004