Wendler Building (Club 25)

Featuring a corner turret, the Wendler Building was built in 1915. Although turrets are frequently found on commercial buildings in slightly earlier commercial buildings in other cities, this was the only one built in Anchorage. The two-story, wood-framed building, which measures approximately 26 feet by 62 feet, originally had a canted entrance under the turret, with one wide store window across the front and a smaller one on the side.

In 1915, A. J. Wendler and R. C. Larson operated a grocery store on the first floor, with Wendler and his family living on the second. Although Larson soon left the business, members of the Wendler family owned the building until 1983. In the mid-1930s, the building was converted to apartments, necessitating the removal of the store windows and corner entrance. In 1948, Wendler's daughter, Myrtle Stalnaker, opened the Club 25 restaurant in the building.

Besides the changes to the fenestration at the first-floor level, additions include a shingled pent roof below the modillioned cornice and a wide band of cut-out ornament below the second-floor windows. Perhaps the latter inspired the neon ornament on the Performing Arts Center; the similarity is striking. The building originally stood at the corner of Fourth and I streets. In 1983, facing demolition, the building was moved to its present site, where it could maintain the same orientation to the intersection. A three-story brick building was constructed to wrap around it but is so different as to appear unconnected.