The Stangenwald Building at 119 Merchant Street, in downtown

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

was the city's first high-rise office building, with its own law library, and one of the earliest electric

elevator An elevator or lift is a wire rope, cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or deck (building), decks of a building, watercraft, ...

s in the (then)

Territory A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or a ...

when it was built in 1901.Honolulu Chapter,

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 ...

, ''Exploring Downtown: A Walking Tour,'' April 2009. It was also advertised as "fireproof" because it was built of concrete, stone, brick, and steel, with no wood except in the windows, doors, and furniture, and because it had fireproof vaults and firehoses on every floor. Fireproofing was an important selling point because of the fire that had devastated nearby

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austra ...

the previous year.) Apart from a few exceptional structures like

Aloha Tower The Aloha Tower is a retired lighthouse that is considered one of the landmarks of the state of Hawaii in the United States. Opened on September 11, 1926, at a then astronomical cost of $160,000, the Aloha Tower is located at Pier 9 of Honolulu Ha ...

(1926) and

Honolulu Hale Honolulu Hale (originally called the Honolulu Municipal Building), located on 530 South King Street in downtown Honolulu in the City & County of Honolulu, Hawaii, is the official seat of government of the city and county, site of the chambers of ...

(1929), it remained the tallest building in Honolulu for half a century, until the building boom of the 1950s.Wilcox, Gaylord (1972)
Business and Buildings: Downtown Honolulu's Old Fashioned Block
''Hawaiian Journal of History'' 6:3-27. Young local

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

C.W. Dickey designed it with features of

Italianate architecture The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

: arched windows,

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 ...

ornaments, and a wide balcony with fine

grillwork A grille or grill ( French word from Latin ''craticula'', small grill) is an opening of several slits side-by-side in a wall, metal sheet or another barrier, usually to allow air or water to enter and/or leave and prevent larger objects ( ...

above the entrance. Every floor had a unique exterior. The interior vestibule and hall were decorated with mosaic tile floors and marble

panelling Panelling (or paneling in the U.S.) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity to make roo ...

, while the stairways had slate and marble steps. In 1980, another local architect, James K. Tsugawa, completed an award-winning restoration. Dr. Hugo Stangenwald was an Austrian physician and pioneer photographer who arrived in Honolulu in 1853.I.M. Zemlicka (1995): "Beiträge zu den Beziehungen der österr.-ungarischen Monarchie und Hawai'is von 1844 - 1901"(Relations between Austria-Hungaria and Hawai'i 1844 - 1901) In 1869, he bought the property and built his medical offices there, in partnership with Dr.

Gerrit P. Judd Gerrit Parmele Judd (April 23, 1803 – July 12, 1873) was an American physician and missionary to the Kingdom of Hawaii who later renounced his American citizenship and became a trusted advisor and cabinet minister to King Kamehameha III. He ...

next door. Not long before he died in 1899, he leased the land to a group who planned a fine structure to match the quality of the Judd Building (1898) next door, designed by

Oliver G. Traphagen Oliver Green Traphagen (3 September 1854 – 21 October 1932) was an American architect who designed many notable buildings in Duluth, Minnesota, during the late 19th century and in the Territory of Hawaii during the early 20th century. Among h ...

, who had just arrived from

Duluth, Minnesota , settlement_type = City , nicknames = Twin Ports (with Superior), Zenith City , motto = , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top: urban Duluth skyline; Minnesota ...

References

Further reading