Ely Walker Lofts (originally known as the Ely and Walker Dry Goods Company Building) is a building located at 1520 Washington Avenue in
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
.
In 1857,
David Davis Walker
David Davis "D. D." Walker (January 19, 1840 – October 4, 1918) was an American businessman. He started his career as a dry goods wholesaler in St. Louis, Missouri. He was the co-founder of Ely & Walker, which remains a clothing brand to this ...
, a member of the
Bush family
The Bush family is an American dynastic family that is prominent in the fields of American politics, news, sports, entertainment, and business. They were the first family of the United States from 1989 to 1993 and again from 2001 to 2009, and w ...
, arrived in St. Louis from Illinois. (Walker would become the great-grandfather of future president
George H. W. Bush and first cousin of
Supreme Court Justice
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest-ranking judicial body in the United States. Its membership, as set by the Judiciary Act of 1869, consists of the chief justice of the United States and eight Associate Justice of the Supreme ...
and Independent
U.S. Senator from Illinois David Davis, a pivotal figure in the disputed
presidential election of 1876.) In 1880, he founded and Frank Ely founded Ely, Walker & Company, which became a leading dry goods wholesaler west of the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...
and was acquired by
Burlington Industries
Burlington Industries, formerly Burlington Mills, is a diversified American fabric maker based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Founded by J. Spencer Love in Burlington, North Carolina in 1923, the company has operations in the United States, Mexi ...
after World War II.
![Ely and Walker Dry Goods Company advertisement](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Ely_and_Walker_Dry_Goods_Company_advertisement.jpg)
Presently, the company needed a warehouse for warehouse for shoes, Catholic school uniforms, and gun holsters. It commissioned
Eames & Young, a St. Louis architecture firm active between 1885 and 1927 that designed several buildings on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
. William Eames, one of its founders and the uncle of architect
Charles Eames, was president of the
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...
in from 1904 until 1905.
Built in 1906 and 1907, the building was designed to be fireproof, with steel-frame and hollow tile floors, and with brick and
terra cotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...
sheathing. Its main facades are north on Washington Avenue, with 15 bays, and south on St. Charles Street. Its east and west facades are also exposed and are similar to the Washington Avenue facade. It has a two-story base level "with
vermiculated terra cotta '
quoins
Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...
' which alternate with terra cotta quoins of smooth finish. At the upper stories, the piers are clad in brick with terra cotta accents. The terra cotta ornament includes a variety of
Classical Revival
Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...
motifs--broken pediments above the 4th-floor windows, garlands at the 7th story and foliated ornament at the
cornice. Dark gray
terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...
ornaments the
spandrels at several stories. Especially noteworthy is the monumental entrance featuring ornamental terra cotta in a foliated cable design surmounted by an elaborate cartouche. There is a small, three-bay, one story section at the east end of the building clad in similar materials." About the space provided by this building, Ely and Walker was described, a few years later, as having the "'largest merchandise floors in America'".
[
It is a ]contributing building
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...
in the Washington Avenue Historic District, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The district comprises 55 commercial buildings constructed between 1899 and 1931 with over 75 percent of these buildings designed by prominent architects. The seven-story Ely Walker building is the second-largest of these 55 buildings and is known for its terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...
ornamentation.[ With photos, the 15th being a 1986 photo of the Ely Walker building (page 79 in PDF).] The building is now used for residential apartments. Many other Washington Avenue landmarks have also been converted to residential housing.
Other Ely Walker buildings include the Ely and Walker Shirt Factory No. 5 in Kennett, Missouri
Kennett is a city in and the county seat of Dunklin County, Missouri, United States. The city is located in the southeast corner (or " Bootheel") of Missouri, east of Arkansas and from the Mississippi River. It has a population of 10,932 accor ...
, which added to the National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 2008, and buildings which were located in the Missouri cities of Illmo, Salem, Vandalia, and Warrenton; and in Paragould, Arkansas
Paragould is the county seat of Greene County, and the 19th-largest city in Arkansas, in the United States. The city is located in northeastern Arkansas on the eastern edge of Crowley's Ridge, a geologic anomaly contained within the Arkansas delta ...
.
References
{{reflist
1907 establishments in Missouri
Apartment buildings in Missouri
Buildings and structures completed in 1907
Historic district contributing properties in Missouri
Neoclassical architecture in Missouri