Citizens Bank
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Bellevue Municipal Building (Citizens Bank)
1908, Leonard H. Field. 201 N. Main St.
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(Photograph by Kathryn Bishop Eckert) -
(Photograph by Kathryn Bishop Eckert)
Field (1873–c. 1944) of Jackson designed this bank building in a vernacular picturesque mode with a touch of classicism in the entrance motif. Charles G. Secore, a Bellevue stonemason, laid the exterior walls with rock-faced fieldstone trimmed with red sandstone. The various geometric shapes (circles, triangles, hearts, spear points, and diamonds) and colors of stone inlaid in the local fieldstone exterior lend a playful vernacular quality to an otherwise solid, regular building. This rough masonry, together with the low-pitched roof of red tile and broad overhanging eaves, is a reminder of H. H. Richardson's work; the pedimented modillioned entrance on the short end, flanked by a pair of Doric columns, represent the classical touch. The interior is finished in oak and floored with tile mosaics in aqua and salmon. On the building's completion, a reviewer in the Bellevue Gazette for January 14, 1909, rather shrewdly and accurately observed that the entrance resembled “the finest modern office buildings . . . in Washington,” and the interior seemed “beautiful and homelike.” The building served as a bank from 1909 to 1931, becoming the Bellevue Municipal Building in 1934.
Writing Credits
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Data
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Location: Bellevue, MichiganRegional Overviews:Architect:Styles:
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Citation
Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "Bellevue Municipal Building (Citizens Bank)", [Bellevue, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MI-01-EA4.
Print Source
Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 303-303.
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