The Weatherly Building in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, is a 12-story commercial office building. It was built in 1927–28 by

ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as str ...

businessman George Warren Weatherly.Cone Pioneer Dies in Portland
August 13, 1948 Eugene Register Guard According to a photograph dated December 21, 1927, held by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

as part of the

Historic American Buildings Survey Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes ...

collection (labeled "Stevens Commercial Photographers"), the building was designed by architects

Sutton & Whitney Sutton & Whitney was an architecture firm based in Portland, Oregon, United States, operating from 1912 to 1950. Its principal partners were Albert Sutton (1866–1923) and Harrison A. Whitney (1877–1962). In 1934, it became Sutton, Whitney & A ...

and Lee Thomas, and was built by Robertson Hay & Wallace

general contractor A general contractor, main contractor or prime contractor is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the course of ...

s. It is listed as a secondary

contributing property 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 distri ...

in the

East Portland Grand Avenue Historic District The East Portland Grand Avenue Historic District, located in southeast Portland, Oregon, Portland, Oregon, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The district includes approximately 20 city blocks on or near Southeast Grand Avenue ...

Background

Weatherly's

creamery A creamery is a place where milk and cream are processed and where butter and cheese is produced. Cream is separated from whole milk; pasteurization is done to the skimmed milk and cream separately. Whole milk for sale has had some cream re ...

business started with a

second-hand Used goods mean any item of personal property offered for sale not as new, including metals in any form except coins that are legal tender, but excluding books, magazines, and postage stamps. Risks Furniture, in particular bedding or upholstere ...

freezer in a small candy shop in 1890 and grew to produce an estimated 90% of Oregon ice cream sales. He was "locally credited" with inventing the ice cream cone and to have been the "east side's leading citizen in the 1920 and 1930s". The building helped develop the so-called "uptown district"Laura O. Foste
Portland City Walks: Twenty Explorations in and Around Town
/ref> and had an ice cream shop on its ground floor. An employee of Weatherly's, F. A. Bruckman, invented and patented the first successful cone manufacturing machine.

Architecture

Weatherly Building - 2009 - Portland Oregon

The Weatherly building has Romanesque 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 ...

embellishments, including an arcade of arches near the roof. It "was among the first high-rise buildings east of the river, with 12 stories towering over the Morrison Bridge." There are 3 elevators and two rooftop penthouses. Movie theatre operator Walter Eugene Tebetts convinced Weatherly to construct the Oriental Theatre adjacent to the Weatherly building. It was designed by Lee Thomas and Albert Mercier, who also designed many other

movie palace A movie palace (or picture palace in the United Kingdom) is any of the large, elaborately decorated movie theaters built between the 1910s and the 1940s. The late 1920s saw the peak of the movie palace, with hundreds opening every year between 192 ...

s in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

. The large and ornate theatre was the area's second largest, behind the Portland Theatre. It was torn down in 1970 to make way for a parking lot. The building and theatre cost $1.5 million.Gary Lacher, Steve Ston
Theatres of Portland
p. 58

Ownership and occupants

The Weatherly sold in 2002 to Mayfield Investment in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

for $7.4 million. It was previously owned by Landmark Investments, who owned it since 1984. Tenants of the Weatherly have included Burns Bros. Inc., Kerr Violin Shop,

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...

, Aqua Terra couples massage, Grand Jete Café, the Portland Running Company, Lensbaby,

Stand for Children Stand for Children is an American education advocacy group. Founded in 1996 following a Children's Defense Fund rallySwanee Hunt. "Young Man with a Strong Voice for America's Children." ''The Beaufort Gazette'', June 11, 2005. the non-profit advo ...

, Archscape Architecture.

References

External links

*
Weatherly Building websitePostcard of Weatherly Building
{{Buckman, Portland, Oregon 1928 establishments in Oregon Buckman, Portland, Oregon Skyscraper office buildings in Portland, Oregon Historic district contributing properties in Oregon National Register of Historic Places in Portland, Oregon Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Oregon Office buildings completed in 1928