Bryan Building
Bryan Building | |
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| Location | 220-230 Brickell Ave., Fort Lauderdale, Florida |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 26°07′10.84″N 80°08′39.33″W / 26.1196778°N 80.1442583°W |
| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1913-14 |
| Architectural style | Masonry vernacular |
| NRHP reference No. | 97001282[1] |
| Added to NRHP | October 30, 1997 |
The Bryan Building, which has also been known as the Shepherd Building and as the DeSoto Hotel, is a historic site in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is located at 220-230 Brickell Avenue. In 1997 it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.[1]
It is a two-story masonry vernacular building. It has brick detailing and brick columns in its front facade.[2] The brick facade is unusual in south Florida, most buildings there are constructed of poured concrete or hollow clay tile.[2] It is a rectangular building that faces west with five storefronts, separated by brick pilasters that have large plate glass windows.[2] The upper floor has eight windows with brick framing resembling a simplified Greek key design.[2] The first and second floor are divided by a cast stucco course with a projecting pediment, below which is an arched door.[2] The south side of the building has four ground floor windows and two doorways the back one leading to a stairway to the second floor and the one on the southwest corner served as the entrance to offices.[2] On this side the first and second floors are divided by a single band of raised brick. The upper story windows are detailed similarly to those on the west side.[2] Primary access to the upper floors has been via a stairway inside the west-facing arched doorway.[2] The upstairs floor and ceiling were constructed of Dade County Pine.[3]
It was built by Thomas Bryan after the 1912 fire in downtown Fort Lauderdale, and, as of its NRHP listing, was the least altered building of its era in the area.[2] Thomas was the son of Nathaniel Bryan who supervised construction of the extension of Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway from West Palm Beach to Miami.[2] He was active in the development and city affairs of Fort Lauderdale and is his activities helped lead to the establishment of Broward County.[2] The area the building is located in was Fort Lauderdale's original downtown commercial center.[2]
The Post Office was located in the building frome 1914 to 1925, about this time The Fort Lauderdale Bank also occupied the ground floor.[2] From the 1920s to the early 1990s the second floor was a hotel or rooming house.[2] Hotels in the building included the Hotel DeSoto (1919 to at least 1927), the Lee Hotel (1936-1938), the Hotel Boriss (1940-1946) and the Dorsey Hotel (1950-1965) a men only hotel with a cowboy motif.[2] The law offices of attorney and City Judge Ennis Shepherd occupied a portion of the ground floor from 1947 to the early 1900s.[2] Read's Dry Goods where locals often purchased materials to make clothes, other dry goods merchants, beef purveyors, real estate offices and insurance agencies were among other tenants.[2] Fort Lauderdale's downtown business district declined in the 1960s due to suburbanization.[2] The building got a historically appropriate renovation about 1998.[2][3]
References
- ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 9 July 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Dav, Jane; Krassv, Susan; Shiver, Carl (September 1997). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Bryan Building / Shepherd Building / DeSoto Hotel". National Park Service. Retrieved 29 October 2017. With five photos from 1996.
- ^ a b Altaner, David (30 January 2000). "Steve Halmos". Sun-Sentinel. Broward, FL. Archived from the original on 7 March 2014.
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External links
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