The Grand Auditorium and Hotel Block is a group of four adjoining historic commercial buildings located in

Story City, Iowa Story City is a city in Story County, Iowa. It is located within the Ames, Iowa Metropolitan Statistical Area which envelops the entirety of Story County and combined with the Boone, Iowa Micropolitan Statistical Area makes up the larger Ames-Boo ...

, United States. From the east, buildings one and three housed various commercial establishments over the years. Building two housed the Grand Opera House, now known as the Story Theatre/Grand Opera House. It has been used for both live theater productions and movies. The fourth building housed the Grand Hotel. The Grand Hotel and Auditorium Company was organized from Story City's Commercial Club in 1913. They hired

Estherville, Iowa Estherville is a city in Emmet County, Iowa, United States. The population was 5,904 in the 2020 census, a decline from 6,656 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Emmet County. History Emmet County was initially created by an act of th ...

architect James S. Cox to design the complex, which was completed in December 1913. While each facade is unique, all four buildings share common elements. Their commonalities include two stories in height, red-brick exterior walls ornamented with buff brick and concrete details. The first three buildings share the same wall plane, while the hotel is slightly recessed from the others. They also decrease in scale from east to west. This slight variation is due to differing treatments of the

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

s and

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...

s. with The buildings were listed 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 v ...

in 1980.

References

Commercial buildings completed in 1913 Buildings and structures in Story County, Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Story County, Iowa Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Theatres on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa {{Iowa-struct-stub