National Park Service Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) U.S. Department of the Interior

Built to Last No. 4 Alex. Brown & Sons Company Building 135 East Baltimore Street (1901, Parker & Thomas; 1907, Beecher, Friz & Gregg, architects) Excerpt from the full report written by Laurie Ossman, Ph.D., for HABS

The Alex. Brown & Sons Company Building was built for Alexander Brown and Sons (founded 1800), the first and oldest continually operating investment banking firm in the United States. Constructed in 1901, just after the compa- ny’s centennial, the building represents the firm’s and, by association, Baltimore’s sig- nificance in American finance in the nine- teenth century. One of the few structures in the district to survive the Great Fire of 1904 and the only known surviving struc- ture to retain much of its elaborate, delib- erately impressive marble and bronze inte- rior and stained glass dome, the building is now owned and maintained by Chevy Chase Bank. Bird’s-eye view of Alex. Brown & Sons Company Building (now Chevy Chase Bank) from the northeast. James W. Rosenthal, photographer, Summer 2001. As an institution, Alex. Brown & antee. Not long after this, Brown portation for other companies’ trade Sons signifies the commercial reversed the process and began sell- concerns. importance of Baltimore in the 19th ing his own company’s bills of century. The founder of the compa- exchange to European traders so By 1834, when the founder died, the ny was a north Irishman who had that, by the 1820s, the Baltimore Baltimore-based company had established American connections company was financing a large por- opened branch offices in key for his linen trading business in tion of the textile trade between American textile centers such Baltimore and Philadelphia prior to Europe (mainly Liverpool) and the Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New his arrival in 1800. This first American South and mid-Atlantic. Orleans and other southern cities. Alexander Brown allegedly selected To further facilitate the banking Other branch offices had been Baltimore as the location of his business, the firm built a shipping established in Philadelphia, New business because it was “the gateway fleet and helped underwrite the York, and Boston, as well as an to the South.” Soon, Brown began establishment of the Baltimore and office in Liverpool, England. underwriting bills of exchange for Ohio Railroad Company in 1827. By Eventually, the American branch American merchants trading with doing so, the company provided not offices became known as Brown English and continental markets, only the capital but also the trans- Brothers & Company, while the often using his own capital as guar- (continued on page 2)

Built to Last: Ten Enduring Landmarks of Baltimore’s Central Business District, Historic American Buildings Survey, Washington, DC, May 2002. Alex. Brown & Sons Company Building (continued)

English branch became Brown, century. The present building, per- past, reflecting turn-of-the 20th cen- Shipley & Company. Financial pan- haps as a tacit advertisement for the tury notions of corporate identity ics in 1834 and 1837 led second son public service utilities, claimed to be and gentility. George Brown of Baltimore to the first in the United States to be diversify the company’s banking heated and lit entirely by electric interests by accepting the presidency power. The complete report for this structure, including of the Mechanics’ Bank, as well as bibliographic citations and references, may be becoming a founder and the first It was under this Alexander Brown’s obtained from the Historic American Buildings Survey beginning in September 2002. Copies of president of the Merchants’ Bank. leadership that the present building this information sheet may be downloaded at no was designed and constructed. cost from the HABS web site: In an era before antitrust laws, the Although the reason given for Alex. Brown company skillfully replacing the High Victorian Gothic www.cr.nps.gov/habshaer/habs/ guaranteed its survival and prof- style building first erected on this itability by maintaining an interest in site in 1860 was utilitarian, it is per- During the summer of 2001, the Historic every aspect and market of haps more than coincidental that the American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Maryland Historical Trust, in coordination with American trade on the East Coast current Georgian Revival style build- the City of Baltimore’s Commission for prior to the Civil War. The founder’s ing was designed and commissioned Historical and Architectural Preservation ambitions, carried through by his around the time of the firm’s cen- (CHAP) and Preservation Maryland, recorded ten historic buildings and sites within Baltimore’s sons, ensured that Baltimore was tennial in 1900. The Georgian Central Business District through large-format well known throughout the United Revival building acts as a visual photography and original historical research. States and internationally as the cen- reminder of the institution’s The heart of the downtown area and focus of intensive redevelopment efforts, Baltimore’s ter of American investment banking endurance for over a century and its Central Business District is a designated city his- and, through their crucial role in status as a venerable part of the toric district and home to a diverse array of his- establishing the B &O Railroad, as a city’s heritage. toric commercial and civic buildings, churches, theaters and other landmarks. Many of them commercial transportation hub. predate the district’s Great Fire of 1904 and As with many “revival” styles (espe- chronicle Baltimore’s rise as a financial, com- Flexibility and a remarkable instinct cially those, like Georgian Revival, mercial and civic center. This project, resulting in more than 150 photographs by Baltimore for anticipating growth markets which fall within the parameters of photographer James W. Rosenthal for HABS and enabled the firm to shift its Colonial Revival in the U.S.) the ten detailed architectural histories by Laurie Southern trade network seamlessly 1901 interpretation of the architec- Ossman, PhD., also a Baltimore resident, grew out of concern about the recent loss of the from textiles to the coffee and sugar ture of the company in 1800 is not Merchants & Miners Transportation Company trades. With the company’s backing archaeologically “correct,” since the Building at 17 Light Street and other buildings of of most import businesses and 1800 Alexander Brown banking architectural distinction in Baltimore. refining and processing plants, house was, in fact, a wood-framed, Ranging chronologically from the Peale Museum Baltimore was also the nation’s three-story utilitarian structure of (1814) to the Bank of America Building (1929; largest grain exporter for a time fol- domestic scale and devoid of any formerly the Baltimore Trust Company Building), and in function from Old St. Paul’s lowing the Civil War. Upon the elaborate ornament or applied rep- Church (1846) to the Gayety Theatre (1906), death of George S. Brown in 1890, resentational motifs. Parker & the ten landmarks selected for this study illus- his son Alexander Brown expanded Thomas’s 1901 design tacitly sug- trate the architectural diversity of the district and the myriad forces that have informed the the company’s interests once again, gests long-standing gentility through district’s growth and evolution over time. The most notably by pioneering the use the use of high-style ornament and exhibit, launched at the Maryland Historical of public utility bonds as investment materials of the so-called Georgian Society in May 2002 during National Historic Preservation Month, and the companion walking securities. This maneuver was astute period. The current building, includ- tour provide a glimpse into the architectural his- and timely on Brown’s part, for the ing the stylistically and materially tory of Baltimore’s Central Business District. It production, delivery, and use of “identical” Beecher, Friz and Gregg is hoped that the exhibit and brochure will encourage further exploration and preservation electricity grew exponentially addition of 1905-7, may be seen as of Baltimore’s tremendously rich architectural throughout the first half of the 20th an idealized view of the institution’s heritage.

2 Built to Last No. 4