herr2ck: One in a Million

February 2025.

After visiting Newark’s Home Building Association Bank, I planned to visit the other Louis Sullivan bank in Ohio--Sidney’s People’s Federal Savings and Loan Association (PFS&LA for brevity). This one is a more typical Sullivanesque jewel box, the standard “brick box with an arch in the middle.” The weather was much fairer and the building was not being renovated, unlike in Newark, but the glare made it really difficult to get shots looking south. The sun was directly in my eyes, meaning it was difficult to frame shots, and the dark northern facade mixed with the bright sky to the south did funky things with the exposure. Oh well.

The People’s Federal Savings and Loan Association Bank is located at 101 East Court Street in downtown Sidney, Ohio. It is near the southwest corner of Courthouse Square, bordered by Court Street and the Shelby County Courthouse to the north, the United Way to the south, more commercial buildings to the east, and Ohio Avenue and The Spot restaurant to the west.

History

The People’s Federal Savings and Loan Association’s original building. (Shelby County Historical Society)

People’s Federal Savings and Loan as an institution predates the Sullivan building by decades. It was founded in 1886, and they moved into a building previously occupied by the Robertson Marble Works (the Robertson Block) in 1891. The bank prospered and grew to become the largest in the county.

By the 1910s, the bank’s founder Lafayette M. Studevant wanted a new fireproof building. They considered remodeling the Robertson Block at first, but once it was discovered that renovation would be as expensive as a new building, the PFS&LA decided to demolish the Robertson Block and construct a new bank. The directors commissioned Louis Sullivan in 1917 to design the new bank after seeing his Home Building Association Bank in Newark.

A very famous anecdote regarding the design of the PFS&LA Bank is a remark Sullivan made to one of the bank’s directors when he was completing the drawings. He apparently sat on a curb by the site for two days, deep in thought, then appeared to the directors with a quick sketch and cost estimate. One director was taken aback by the elaborate and unusual ornamentation, remarking that he favored a classically-inspired design instead. Sullivan then packed up his drawings and began to leave, making his well-known statement that thousands of architects could design a Beaux-Arts bank, but only he could design this one. (Sullivan considered each of his designs to be a “person,” hence why they were all articulated and ornamented differently.) After discussion among the directors, the design was accepted without modification.

To praise Sullivan a little further, the bank only took about a year to construct, and it was completed $1,000 under budget. (Bear in mind that this was during World War I.) It opened on May 31, 1918. The building was lauded even soon after its construction--an article in American Architect published that October claimed “The dispositions of the mass--the fenestration, expressing the functions of the building, and the location of its internal units; the materials treated with enthusiastic and sympathetic understanding; the range and harmony of the color--give the little building a gemlike quality that glows afterward on the ‘inward eye’ like a pigeon-blood ruby.”

The completed People’s Federal Savings and Loan Association bank. (Shelby County Historical Society)

Like in the Home Building Association Bank, Louis Millet designed the mosaics, and Kristian Schneider made the clay molds for the various ornamental features across the building. The bank employs a wide variety of materials, including the brick that makes up most of the walls, marble for the base, terra-cotta ornamentation, and stained glass for the windows and mosaics. Inside, much of the built-in furniture is quarter-sawn oak, though the usual Millet-designed frescoes are absent and the walls are simply painted.

Unlike the Home Building Association Bank, I couldn’t find any history of the PFS&LA after its construction, beyond the fact that it remains largely unaltered. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and the building is now a National Historic Landmark, too. I must assume the bank has been either restored at some point or has simply been excellently maintained, but some features such as the mosaics appear aged.

Photos

Let’s start with a nice view of the PFS&LA Bank and its context.

Look how stark that lighting difference is! The bank rises a little higher than its neighbors, but in the words of Vincent Scully, it “respect[s] Main Street and ennoble[s] it--[Sullivan] understands and manipulates the street as either Wright or Purcell and Elmslie could…” I find Sullivan’s banks such as these to be excellent examples of small-town American architecture, as they respect their context in scale and massing.

These are really great examples of “a picture being worth a thousand words.” I could write a whole essay on the composition and ornamentation of this bank.

The north facade, with its dominant central arch:

The tendency of the eye is to look right at the arch, since it is at such a large scale and in the middle of the facade, but if it lingers there’s more to see. The cornice and its ornamental cluster, the florid springers below the arch, the decorative lintel, and lion statues all stick out.

Detail of the arch and its mosaic:

This is such an important part of the building due to its polychromy. Millet’s vibrant colors, especially the blue that dominates much of the mosaic, both emphasize that feature of the building and contrast it with the brick masonry. Even the brick is polychrome, creating a subtle yet vibrant background that allows the more ornamental features to shine.

Detail of the cornice and ornament above the arch:

My architectural history professor described the terra-cotta molds as “squirrel-pelt,” and I can kinda see it in the hexagonal panels inscribed with diagonal lines. The projecting cluster is typical Sullivanesque ornamentation--highly detailed geometric designs overlaid with elaborate vegetal decoration. Incidentally, the “F&M BANK” sign is the most recent and probably the most significant alteration the building has yet received--it took place between 2019 and today, and before it was the original PFS&LA metal sign.

I’ll finish up the north facade with some more detailed shots. In my opinion, a proper building should provide many photogenic moments, whether they are obvious ornamentation, play of light and shadow, or interesting abstract features. Here are the two lions that flank the front door:

Knowlton’s archives has a lion that’s very similar to this one, albeit vandalized. I’m unsure why they even have it in the first place, since I believe the only time Sullivan used them was on these “jewel box” banks, all of which still stand.

The detailed springer and its connecting string course:

Sullivan was a master of small details like this one. The springer provides appropriate visual relief for the massive arch above, and it both connects and projects from the string course that circumscribes the entire building. Looking at the one on the other side, you can see that the inside of the arch is engraved with ornament too:

Again, the arch’s depth and slight protrusion from the remainder of the facade gives it proper visual weight.

I think this photo best summarizes the polychromy of the whole building--bright, organic colors on the mosaic, the gray-green masonry, and the various shades of red brick.

Even the doorway is highly elaborate and heavily articulated:

This architrave is wonderful:

Note the repeating hexagonal motif, similar to the one along the cornice. The inscription is faint, but it appears to have “PSLA” superimposed.

To think we’re only halfway done…at least the west facade will be a little shorter. Nothing gets me yapping like a Sullivan building. Here is the west facade in its entirety:

The pale box to the south is a poorly-designed addition from 1987 by Freytag & Associates that hardly relates to the original building. However, this one-story part is still Sullivan’s:

Note how the windows and panels are recessed, as well as the brick texture.

This lion is terra-cotta, standing guard over the rearmost pier of the building:

I had a better framed shot of this ornament, but it was unfocused for some reason. More hexagons!

A spandrel:

The stars of the show here are the massive stained glass windows and the surrounding terra-cotta decoration:

These attain a really great textural effect and provide lots of depth to an otherwise flat facade. Another simpler mosaic crowns the windows. Again, God is in the details here--see how the “bundled tube” mullions of terra-cotta are a continuation of the string course?

The two anchoring clusters on the bottom are similar (though not identical) to the one on top of the north facade. The ones below each pier are unique, though, and serve as elaborated corbels that thrust the terra-cotta from the surrounding brick. I like the lion heads between each pier, too.

The ornament above is again similar but subtly different:

I really like how the horizontal mullion tapers and flattens. Its very light appearance is achieved through using the terra-cotta as one would cast-iron, it separates into slender ribs as it goes down in size.

Another great polychrome composition here--this is the central cluster:

I couldn’t get a shot of the windows by themselves that I was really happy with. This one is centered, but I wasn’t directly in front of the center window, so the angle is a bit off.