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Blair House Apartments (J. C. Blair Stationery Company)

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J. C. Blair Stationery Company
1889, Frederick L. Olds. 600 Penn St.
  • Blair House Apartments (J. C. Blair Stationery Company) (HABS)

Pennsylvania State University's first resident architect, Frederick Olds, designed this building that has a remarkable resemblance to Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge's Lionberger Wholesale Warehouse of 1887–1889 in St. Louis, illustrated in the American Architect and Building News of May 21, 1887. That building, in turn, was modeled after H. H. Richardson's Marshall Field Wholesale Store of 1885–1887 in Chicago. Olds was more a devotee than a copyist. He used the Richardsonian rhythm of windows and pilasters, but employed rolling wave patterns in the spandrels between the slightly recessed windows. The building's stone base is more a foundation than a first story, as in the St. Louis and Chicago buildings. The handsome cornice is pierced by narrow windows almost hidden in the depths of its corbeling. The Blair Building has been successfully adapted to its present use as subsidized housing for the elderly.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Lu Donnelly et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Huntingdon County Chamber of Commerce (Union Depot and Hunt Signal Tower)
Mutual Benefit Insurance Group (Dorris, Scott, and Snare Houses)
Abbey Reformed Church–United Church of Christ (Abbey Reformed Church)
Huntingdon Library and Huntingdon County Historical Society (McMurtrie Houses)
Speer House (Dorsey House)

Citation

Lu Donnelly et al., "Blair House Apartments (J. C. Blair Stationery Company)", [Huntingdon, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-01-HU7.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of PA vol 1

Buildings of Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, Lu Donnelly, H. David Brumble IV, and Franklin Toker. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010, 358-359.

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