2007 Winter Extra
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The Society of Architectural Historians News Missouri Valley Chapter Volume XIII Number 4B Winter—Extra 2007 Letter prove this property with a large office building. Both archi- THE ST. NICHOLAS HOTEL tects Isaac Taylor and Edmund Jungenfeld submitted plans AND THE VICTORIA BUILDING for the project, and the Estate selected Jungenfeld’s Gothic by David J. Simmons Revival design. Measuring 96 feet on Locust by 115 feet along Eighth Street, his Ames Building would rise eight During the period from 1890 to 1893, the architectural team stories above the ground floor, attaining a height of 118 of Adler & Sullivan designed nine projects for the St. Louis feet. At the corner of the building a tower extended upward market. Four of these commissions reached fruition and an additional 24 feet. Jungenfeld located the main entrance three survive today. The St. Nicholas Hotel lasted just one on Eighth Street. Besides the entrance hall and accessories decade before being rebuilt as an office building by Eames the ground floor contained four stores. Each floor above & Young. It has not received the appreciation or scholarly the ground story had 22 offices, for a total of 176. Other attention accorded to its three sister works (even the com- building features included an open light court in the rear, paratively little-known Union Trust Building). The under- two elevators, and cast iron staircases throughout. The cost standing of its history has been plagued by confusion, mis- was estimated at $200,000. In 1884, prior to the start of takes, and misconceptions. Dismissed by architectural pun- construction, Mr. Jungenfeld suddenly died, and the Ames dits of the past generation as a minor structure with odd estate terminated the project. ornamentation, this hotel demands a fresh evaluation, free of nay-saying criticisms and skyscraper ideologies. Seen in this context the hotel looks bold, beautiful, and balanced, proclaiming its status as a masterpiece from the genius of the master. Nathan Ames founded a pork processing and packing busi- ness shortly after his St. Louis arrival in 1841. After his death in 1852, his sons Edgar and Henry expanded the busi- ness. During the Civil War, their contracts with the Union Army to supply the troops with pork products brought them great wealth. They invested these funds in St. Louis down- town real estate. Together they purchased the new Lindell Hotel for one third of its value. At the same time Edgar acquired the future site of the St. Nicholas Hotel at the northwest corner of Eighth and Locust. In 1860, Lucy Virginia Semple, daughter of a United States Senator from Illinois and future chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, traveled by packet downriver from the family residence at Elsah to St. Louis in search of a suitable (rich) spouse. Beautiful, charming and well educated Lucy Drawing labeled “Hotel St. Nicholas, St. Louis, MO, Adler & Sullivan, Chas. K. Ramsey, Associated Architects” Published in possessed a keen intellect and an independent spirit rare for American Architect and Building News. October 5, 1895 (Vol. a woman in this period. In St. Louis she met wealthy Edgar L, No. 1032). Previously published in the St. Louis Post- Ames, a man noted for his integrity, generosity, and civic- Dispatch, November 13, 1892. mindedness. Their marriage produced two girls and two boys. When Edgar died in 1867, the court valued his estate Early in 1892, Edgar Ames’ two sons, Henry Semple Ames at $2.5 million. After five years of litigation, the court allo- and Edgar Ames, decided to erect on this site a hotel of cated the hotel’s future site as part of Edgar’s bequest to his modest size. The likely source of their inspiration was the children. excitement generated by another hotel project just six blocks away on Fourth Street – the new Planters Hotel. Twelve years passed, and the Ames Estate wanted to im- Unfortunately for the brothers, the Planters project offered a special challenge to their vision of a first-class hotel. Fronting 420 feet on Fourth Street, the 11-story Planters roof with a castle-like appearance. Adler & Sullivan had Hotel utilized a traditional design packaged in a modern participated in the Mercantile Club Building competition in idiom. Representing a total investment of $2 million, this 1891. Sullivan also looked at a sketch of Isaac Taylor’s hotel featured 414 bedrooms, 8 elevators, grand public new Planters Hotel, the competitor. When he returned to rooms, and a staff of 300 people to serve its guests. How his Chicago offices he re-examined the plans for the Seattle do you meet the challenge of a grand hotel when your hos- Opera House, especially its tower with steep roof, balcony, telry is less than one fourth its size and cost? The Ames and paneled balustrade. Then his ideas for the new hotel hotel had to be distinct. The brothers discussed their pro- crystallized. ject with their mother, who recommended architect Charles K. Ramsey to plan their new building. He had designed her home at 3842 Lindell Boulevard in 1889. When the broth- ers consulted Ramsey, he suggested bringing in Adler & Sullivan to design the project, and the brothers agreed. Between 1887 and 1895, Adler & Sullivan designed seven new hotel projects but built only four of them. Three com- missions dealt with a hotel as part of a multifunction com- plex. The Auditorium located in Chicago represented their most ambitious work in this genre. It combined a 4,200- seat theater, a 400-room hotel, and a 136-room office tower. Its heavy and massive exterior reflected the Richardson Romanesque style but lacked artistic coherence. Its brilliance lay in its clever arrangement of internal spaces and magnificent décor, rich in Sullivan’s exquisite ornament. Both the Seattle Opera House project of 1890 (theater, apartment hotel, and stores) and the Chattanooga Chambers of Commerce Building project of 1891 (hotel and offices) were never built. Another project, the Hotel Ontario in Salt Lake City, Utah, was started in 1890 but abandoned after its foundation was built. Adler & Sullivan did succeed in building two other hotels, neither possessing much archi- tectural significance: Hotel Minnetonka, a two-story wood- frame summer resort, erected in 1894 at Lake Bluff, Illi- nois, and Hotel Victoria, a three-story wood-frame building erected in 1893 at Chicago Heights, Illinois. Although lim- ited by cost and size, the St. Nicholas commission pre- “Hotel St. Nicholas, St. Louis” from John Albury Bryan, Missouri’s sented the architects with an opportunity to create some- Contribution to American Architecture, p. 95. Bryan produced this publication for the second national AIA convention in St. Louis, thing memorable, unique, and artistic. Sullivan accepted held at the Chase-Park Plaza in 1928. the challenge and designed a beautiful and picturesque ho- tel. It eclipsed their other works of this genre except for the interior of the Auditorium. As we examine the St. Nicholas It would be domestic in appearance rather than commercial. Hotel, it will become evident that we must rank it among A bold and unexpected design focused on the banquet room their best works – a masterpiece. on the top floor. Part of the design would vaguely resemble a European hunting lodge, enriched with Sullivan orna- Sullivan traveled to St. Louis to meet with his clients and ment. The hotel plans were completed by November 1892. Mr. Ramsey. He examined the building site and found On December 11, 1892, the St. Louis newspapers an- three neighborhood buildings of interest. The Fagan Build- nounced the project. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch carried a ing lat 816 Olive, designed by C. B. Clarke in 1888, dis- sketch of the hotel’s Locust Street front. The brothers an- played an unusual architectural design but a top-heavy ap- ticipated an accelerated construction schedule and the ho- pearance. The Turner Building at 304 North Eighth Street, tel’s opening in November 1893. Charles K. Ramsey designed in 1884 by Peabody & Stearns of Boston, pos- would supervise its construction. sessed a steep gabled roof flanked by tall chimneys. The Mercantile Club Building at the southwest corner of Sev- In the spring of 1893 contractors cleared the site. The St. enth and Locust, designed by Isaac Taylor, also had a steep Louis Daily Record reported the issuance of a building per- Newsletter 2 Winter—Extra 2007 mit for the St. Nicholas Hotel on June 28, 1893. The new els delineated the edges and center of the shaft and sug- hotel needed to be in operation before the Planters Hotel gested pillars of support for the balconies above. Since opened, otherwise, the magnificence and size of the latter form follows function, the hotel rooms that had oriels or would marginalize the former. Unfortunately, the financial balconies also had private bathrooms. panic of 1893 derailed the project’s schedule and extended construction to the end of 1894. During this period con- struction loans became either nonexistent or very difficult to obtain. Notice of the grand opening celebration for Link’s Union Station and Taylor’s Planters Hotel came in September 1894 amid universal praise. By contrast, the St. Nicholas Hotel started to receive guests without public notice or newsprint fanfare, sometime after the beginning of 1895. The Post-Dispatch mentioned the new St. Nicholas for the first time on March 10, 1895. The hotel operated at capac- ity during that previous week starting March 3, 1895. The mystery of its unpublicized opening remains unresolved. To build this hotel cost about $350,000, and the owners spent another $90,000 to furnish it. The rate for rooms with private baths ranged from $2.50 to $4.00 a night.