STEWART’S DEPARTMENT STORE (POSNER BUILDING)

The success of the Hutzlers Brothers’ department store sparked the development of others including the equally impressive Renaissance Revival building erected directly across the street for Elias and Samuel Posner. It was sold in 1904 to Louis Stewart, becoming the flagship building for the local Stewart’s Department Store chain. The richly ornamented, white brick and terra-cotta building has two principal facades to take advantage of its corner location, each with a central pedimented entrance pavilion flanked by large display windows, featuring Ionic and Corinthian columns, garlands, and lion’s heads. The building demonstrates how appealing architectural motifs were as much a part of department store design as street-front display windows and open floor plans, luring customers with the company’s good taste and distinguishing them from their competitors. The building is among Cassell’s best works, hailed in its day as “one of the largest and handsomest business structures in the city.”