The L. B. King and Company Building is a commercial building located at 1274 Library Street in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. It is also known as the Annis Furs Building. The building was 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 ...

and designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1987.

History

L. B. King was born in Detroit in 1851, was educated in the city, and earned a BS degree from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in 1874.L. B. King Building/Annis Furs Building
from Detroit1701.org After graduation, King joined his father's crockery and glassware firm, which had been founded in 1849. He rose through the ranks to become president of the company in 1907, by which time the company was specializing as a china wholesaler. P. 26. In 1910, King engaged architects Rogers and MacFarlane to design this building as their offices; the structure was completed in 1911. The firm maintained its headquarters in the building from 1911 to 1932. In 1932, Annis Furs, a wholesale and retail furrier established by Newton Annis in 1887, moved into the building. They used the building until 1983, nearly the last example of the fur industry that helped found Detroit nearly 300 years earlier. P. 46. In 1988 the Law Firm of Patterson, Phifer, and Phillips hired Frank Z. Martin to refurbish the building. Both L. B. King and Company and Annis Furs were prominent commercial firms in the history of Detroit. The building was renovated placed on the

and the state of Michigan historic register in 1987, and later renovated and reopened in 1988.

Description

The L. B. King and Company Building is a six-story commercial building with a steel frame with white

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 ...

cladding on the facade.King, L. B., and Company Building
from the state of Michigan The facade of the lower two stories are virtually all glass; the upper four stories are divided into four vertical sections, each with Chicago-style windows. Atop the building is an elaborate

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

cornice which was added in 1926. The building exemplifies the Commercial style of architecture that was extensively used in the early twentieth century.

References

External links

Elbert Hubbard
''A Little Journey to L. B. King & Company's: Being an Appreciation,'' The Roycrofters, 1913 (26 pages) {{National Register of Historic Places in Michigan de:Annis Furs#Annis Furs Building Office buildings in Detroit Headquarters in the United States Office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Buildings and structures completed in 1910 Michigan State Historic Sites Rock Ventures National Register of Historic Places in Detroit Chicago school architecture in Michigan