Howard Bank (Montpelier Savings Bank)

Prior to the middle of the twentieth century, most downtown buildings in Vermont were constructed individually, a single building at a time. An exception is this group of three buildings. The anchor is the three-story, flat-roofed bank building with large clustered windows at 90–98 Main Street. A first-floor colonnade of granite columns turned at Barre's Grearson and Lane Company, red brick upper stories, and rock-faced granite quoins and voussoirs produce an eye-catching polychrome effect. On Langdon Street, the less elaborately detailed three-story buildings are divided into a series of small storefronts, but they share a uniform cornice height and the brick and granite material scheme. Built by Montpelier entrepreneur, and the town's first millionaire, James R. Langdon, the complex is one of Vermont's first privately financed, coherently planned urban commercial developments.