People’s Federal Savings and Loan Association Building, Court Street and Ohio Avenue, Sidney, OH
Image by w_lemay
Built in 1917, this Chicago School and Sullivanesque-style building was designed by Louis Sullivan as one of his late-career “jewel box” bank buildings that are largely located in smaller communities throughout the midwest. Built for the People’s Federal Savings and Loan Association, the building was the result of the bank’s secretary, LaFayette M. Studevant, coming across the previous bank that Sullivan had designed for The Home Building Association Company in nearby Newark, Ohio in 1914, which Studevant found to be an immensely beautiful design that adequately communicated that the People’s Federal Savings and Loan was an elegant and progressive business. In addition to Louis Sullivan, the building’s frescoes and mosaics were designed by architectural decorator Louis J. Millet, and clay modeler Kristian Schneider, whom developed moulds for the building’s terra cotta, metal, and plaster details.
The building features a red brick exterior with terra cotta trim, decorative panels with Sullivanesque detailing, Sullivanesque trim, stained glass windows on the side facade, a decorative exterior mosaic in the tympanum below the arch above the front entrance with the word “Thrift” in gold lettering in the middle of an expanse of blue tile and decorative white, cream, green, purple, red, and orange tile accents, decorative metal lettering on the facade above the arch displaying the words “The People’s Federal Savings & Loan Assn”, which was modified when the word “federal” was added to the bank’s name, with another mosaic framed by terra cotta trim above the nine side stained glass windows, featuring the words and numbers “1886 The People’s Savings & Loan Association 1917” in cream tile surrounded by an expanse of green tile and white accents, black marble cladding at the base, gargoyles above the pilasters framing the front entrance, fixed glass windows at the corners, brass double doors, an intricate decorative panel above the front entrance, a shorter one-story rear wing with seven windows with terra cotta panels above, terra cotta panels at the top of the facade, and a gargoyle at the top of the pilaster at the rear of the building. The building’s interior features a low vestibule that opens into a large two-story-tall banking hall with walls clad in brick and plaster, with quarter sawn oak beams, trim, and wall clock, featuring simple Arts and Crafts details, decorative urns, black marble counters, a blue slag glass skylight, a marble and terra cotta water fountain, and a vault at the rear of the main banking hall.
The building received a one-story rear addition in 1987, designed by Freytag and Freytag and utilizing buff brick, which is clad in buff brick to differentiate it from the original building, with a recessed entrance that helps to accentuate the end of the original building and the start of the addition. The building still remains home to the bank that it was built for, now part of the Farmers & Merchants State Bank, with the exterior and interior very well-preserved. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as a National Historic Landmark in 1972, and is a contributing structure in the Sidney Courthouse Square Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
