Front and Oak, 1939, in a photo by Minor White (courtesy Cafe Unknown)
BY FRED LEESON
“It costs a lot of money to make a building look like this.” Developer John Russell drew hearty laughs with that line at a reception this month in downtown Portland’s oldest surviving commercial building, the two-story Hallock-McMillan building at SW Naito Parkway and Oak Street.
Russell stood on battered wooden flooring that dates to 1857. Overhead were bare rafters. The stripped brick walls showed places where windows overlooking Oak Street had been filled in over the years, plus a few remaining layers of plaster here and there. Gone were the suspended ceiling, sheetrock and any remains of asbestos.
The exterior of the small brick building shows few historical details. Its cast iron columns and arches were stripped out in a 1940s makeover that gave its prime façade facing the river a surprisingly modern appearance. Russell said he didn’t realize the historic significance of the building until he read about it in William J. Hawkins III’s book, The Grand Era of Cast Iron Architecture in Portland, published in the mid 1970s (now sadly out of print).
A recent reception at the Hallock-McMillan building (photo by Fred Leeson)
Russell learned that the Hallock-McMillan building was among Portland’s earliest ventures into cast iron architecture, and that Absalom B. Hallock, who built it in 1857, was Portland’s first architect. William McMillan was the contractor, apparently making them the city’s first design-build team. According to Hawkins, Hallock designed approximately 18 buildings in Portland, about half of them using cast iron. Only this one remains.
Russell said he spent 30 years trying to buy the building, which he finally acquired last October. Working with architect Brian Emerick, he plans to restore the exterior to its original appearance. Hawkins has done research to confirm the rather simple details of the cast iron pieces. David Talbot, of Architectural Reproductions in Portland, will make the molds. The iron pieces will be fabricated at a foundry in Silverton.
“There were five or six materials that could have been used to make the reproductions,” Russell said. “We decided that the best would be the real thing.”
Hallock, the early architect, represented a San Francisco foundry that sold iron façade elements. But within just a few years, Portland had its own iron-making foundries. Hawkins said cast iron was the fastest, easiest way to build a stylish façade in the late 1800s; the pieces bolted together in Erector-set fashion.
Hallock-McMillan building restoration model (photo by Dan Hanekow)
Hallock-McMillan today (photo by Fred Leeson)
Cast iron was all the rage in commercial building until the late 1880s, when cast iron had proved vulnerable to fire and a popular new architectural style, Richardson Romanesque, started sweeping the country with its heavy facades of stone and brick. San Francisco had the West Coast’s largest collection of cast iron buildings, but it was substantially wiped out by the 1906 earthquake and fire.
Portland had the second largest collection of cast iron buildings on the West Coast, mostly Italianate in design, that lined Front, First and Second Avenues. Many remained intact until after World War II, when many were torn down to make way for surface parking. If Portland had exercised better sense at the time, those cast-iron streets today likely would be a prime tourist magnet of the West Coast.
“Victorians loved detail,” Russell said. The Hallock building was erected early in the Victorian era. Cast iron parts quickly became more detailed and ornamental. (See the Corinthian columns on the New Market Theater of 1873, and detailing on the Fechhmeier & White building of 1883, which stands adjacent to Hallock-McMillan – also owned and restored by Russell.)
Emerick, whose firm concentrates on restoration and period designs, said the goal is to restore the Hallock-McMillan to its original appearance on the outside, while adding all-new mechanical systems and seismic bracing that will make it highly efficient and safe. Bremik Construction, which also is well-regarded for its historic renovations, will be the contractor.
The work itself will only take a few months. But a start date is not yet determined. “We have to find a tenant first,” Russell said.
Fred Leeson is a Portland journalist and president of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation/Architectural Heritage Center.
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