Blackstone Building

The Blackstone Building is primarily of local architectural significance as an example of terra cotta construction in the Neo-Classical style, and as one of the few extant commercial designs of Charles R. Weatherhogg, who was a prominent Fort Wayne architect. With the exception of one other structure, the 1924 Utility Building, the Blackstone Building is the only commercial structure in downtown Fort Wayne to have an upper facade clad entirely in terra cotta. The ground-floor exterior of the Utility Building has been completely altered and the first-floor interior has recently been substantially changed. The upper facade, however, remains essentially intact. Virtually all other such local examples of the use of terra cotta were theaters, including the Lyric (c. 1910), Kieth (1907), and Orpheum (c.1924), all of which have been demolished. The best example of terra cotta as trim is the Embassy Theater/Indiana Hotel (1928), which has tapestry brick as its principal facing material.

Charles R. Weatherhogg was born on April 15, 1872, in Donington, Lincolnshire, England. After apprenticing for three years, Weatherhogg came to America to view the 1893 Chicago World Fair. He was so impressed that he decided to establish himself in the United States. Making business connections with a firm in Fort Wayne, he spent his early years of practice, 1893-1897, in partnership with Arthur Grindle. He left the firm to open an office under his own name, which was most successful between the years 1910-1928. Through his work, he promoted the formal Beaux-Arts style, which he often combined with details of other architectural styles. He was adept at working with numerous stylistic modes and choosing appropriate styles to meet the particular needs of clients, buildings, and sites. His large-scale commission work was most often done in the Neo-Classical Beaux-Arts Style. He not only designed structures in Indiana but in Ohio and Michigan as well. He was also selected to the committee appointed to draft Fort Wayne's new building codes.

Though he designed many major downtown structures during his career, only four of Weatherhogg other downtown designs survive Central High School (1902), Elks Temple (1907), Masonic Temple (1922), and the Journal-Gazette Building (1927). His vanished works included not only such other downtown landmarks as the Anthony Hotel (1907, Louis H. Sullivan, associate designer) and the Keenan Hotel (1922) but also a suburban commission related to the origins of the Blackstone Building, his 1915 design for the same client, William H. Noll, of a palatial mansion that was arguably the most elaborate residence built in Fort Wayne during this century William H. Noll was a prominent businessman who made his fortune mass-producing a cough syrup originally developed by his pharmacist father. Noll later opened the nation's first factory to mass produce liquid nail polish. He bought the site of the Blackstone Building along with the adjacent Schmitz Block in 1912; in 1927, Noll erected this building to house Blackstone Shop, an exclusive women's clothing store owned by his wife, Laura Green Noll. Mrs. Noll's business continued to occupy the building until 1937; it was succeeded by a men's clothing store, Harold Hughes, in 1941, and by Nobbson, another women's clothier, in 1951. Nobbson used this building, along with the first floor of the adjacent Schmitz Block, until it abandoned downtown for a suburban mall in 1979.