Barlow Building

211 West Holly Street
Bellingham, WA 98225
United States (US)

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Built in 1892 in downtown Bellingham, the Barlow Building stands at 211 West Holly Street in the central portion of Bellingham’s Central Business District.

The building remains as one of the few, intact single-story commercial buildings along the Central Business District’s main thoroughfare of West Holly Street.

The period of significance for the Barlow Building, 1892 to 1925, encompasses the building’s date of construction (1892) and formative period of use as a grocery store, bar, and seminal function as a leather goods specialty store, culminating in a front facade remodel indicating the store’s success and permanence within the community.

The Barlow Building draws its architectural significance from its prominent and stylistically distinctive front facade which was designed to maximize the visibility of the modest structure amongst the surrounding buildings.

The compact, rectangular, single-story brick masonry building fills the southeast 25′ of two lots with a total footprint dimension of 25′ by 110′.

The narrow, primary, front, northeast facade faces West Holly Street. Employing un-reinforced brick masonry walls, a broad storefront with plate glass and leaded windows, decorative front facade brickwork, a tall, articulated parapet, and a flat roof, the Barlow Building presents an intact, characterdefining example of a single-storied commercial building within Bellingham’s Central Business District.

Substantial historically significant alterations to the building occurred in: • ca 1915 to 1930s: Southwest addition, approximately 18′ by 20′. • 1925: Front facade conversion to existing form, adding brick and marble facing, decorative curved parapet form, I-beam spanning the storefront, leaded windows and display windows.

Today, the Barlow Building retains a substantial proportion of original structural and exterior building envelope fabric, and historically significant front facade storefront, brickwork and parapet, and interior spatial volumes and relationships.

Source: City of Bellingham

Built in 1892 in downtown Bellingham, the Barlow Building stands at 211 West Holly Street in the central portion of Bellingham’s Central Business District.

The building remains as one of the few, intact single-story commercial buildings along the Central Business District’s main thoroughfare of West Holly Street.

The period of significance for the Barlow Building, 1892 to 1925, encompasses the building’s date of construction (1892) and formative period of use as a grocery store, bar, and seminal function as a leather goods specialty store, culminating in a front facade remodel indicating the store’s success and permanence within the community.

The Barlow Building draws its architectural significance from its prominent and stylistically distinctive front facade which was designed to maximize the visibility of the modest structure amongst the surrounding buildings.

The compact, rectangular, single-story brick masonry building fills the southeast 25′ of two lots with a total footprint dimension of 25′ by 110′.

The narrow, primary, front, northeast facade faces West Holly Street. Employing un-reinforced brick masonry walls, a broad storefront with plate glass and leaded windows, decorative front facade brickwork, a tall, articulated parapet, and a flat roof, the Barlow Building presents an intact, characterdefining example of a single-storied commercial building within Bellingham’s Central Business District.

Substantial historically significant alterations to the building occurred in: • ca 1915 to 1930s: Southwest addition, approximately 18′ by 20′. • 1925: Front facade conversion to existing form, adding brick and marble facing, decorative curved parapet form, I-beam spanning the storefront, leaded windows and display windows.

Today, the Barlow Building retains a substantial proportion of original structural and exterior building envelope fabric, and historically significant front facade storefront, brickwork and parapet, and interior spatial volumes and relationships.

Source: City of Bellingham