St. Paul Building (Germania Bank), St. Paul

Since 1890, the tall brownstone building at the corner of Fifth and Wabasha has been a symbol of resilience in a changing world. Only ten years after building it, the Germania Bank was forced to liquidate. Renamed the Ernst Building, then the Pittsburgh Building, it finally became the St. Paul Building in 1934.

The young capital city was booming when the Germania Bank was chartered in 1884, with Alexander Ramsey as its president. The corner of Fifth and Wabasha Streets was a prime downtown location, and a design competition was held for the new building. From the eleven entries received, judges chose the design submitted by J. Walter Stevens, architect of several elegant Summit Avenue homes and Lowertown warehouses.

Like many pioneer architects, Stevens’ only training had been a few years as an apprentice in his father’s office. But he became successful with the help of talented draftsmen who moved from city to city, following the money to construct their elaborate designs. Harvey Ellis, one of the finest architectural artists of the period, worked sporadically for Stevens after arriving in the city in 1886. Based on the evidence, some architectural historians believe that Ellis worked on the winning entry.

An unsigned pen-and-ink rendering of the Germania Bank, dated 1888, was reproduced in American Architect in 1892. The design is a hybrid of the popular Richardsonian Romanesque style, incorporating an Italian Renaissance-style top story. This transitional style was becoming popular in Boston and Chicago, contributing to the evidence that the wandering Ellis helped design it.

At eight stories, the building was much taller than its neighbors. Three other multi-story office buildings, however, were built downtown that year—of brick. Germania Bank was the last high-rise brownstone.

The building’s cavernous entries and windows are supported by Roman arches in massive walls of rusticated red Lake Superior sandstone. Stone masons carved fanciful designs into the soft sandstone columns as well as the window and door trim. The upper third of the façade features a multicolored checkerboard pattern and colonnettes inspired by an Italian palazzo. Built by Lauer Brothers, the structure’s final cost was more than $165,000.

The bank occupied the entire second floor, which featured a coffered wooden ceiling, intricately carved moldings and recessed arches, marble floors, and ornate iron grillwork at the tellers’ windows. In a “sketch for interior of a bank by Harvey Ellis,” published in Western Architect in 1904, J. Walter Stevens is identified as the architect. The Germania Bank building is the only bank Stevens is known to have designed.

By 1902, the former bank had become the Ernst Building, taking the name of its new owner, Caspar Ernst. Five years later, it was renamed the Pittsburgh Building, perhaps because Penn Mutual Life Insurance held the note on the mortgage. The building became known as the St. Paul Building in 1934.

Office tenants have included doctors, dentists, lawyers, and a dressmaker as well as Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency. Shops selling books, gloves, jewelry, cigars, candy, and shoes have occupied the street-level storefronts.

According to historian David Page, F. Scott Fitzgerald may have rented a writing room in the building in the winter of 1921. On that visit home—his last—Fitzgerald kept the location a secret so he could write undisturbed. Soon, he started writing the short stories that would evolve into The Great Gatsby.

Many of the bank’s design elements were lost to remodeling over the years, including after World War II, when the storefronts were “modernized” to attract trend-conscious customers. In 1977, however, the structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In the mid-1980s, its storefronts were restored to their original nineteenth century appearance.