The Garrett Building

The Garrett Building. . This 13-story building, completed in 1913, was designed by Baltimore architects J. B. Noel Wyatt and William G. Nolting. Reflecting a mixture of styles, this transitional building combines the Chicago windows, flat wall panes and flat skyline characteristic of the Commercial style with Renaissance Revival details such as loggias, pedimented windows and rustication. From 1913 to 1974, the building housed Robert Garrett and Sons, one of the oldest and most influential banking houses in the country., Robert Garrett (1783-1857), an Irish-born merchant-turned-financier, came to Baltimore as a young man in 1801 and clerked for several years in a produce and commission house. In 1819, he opened his own firm on Howard Street, dispatching such items as flint, chocolate and chalk to village stores out west, and receiving in return ginseng, snakeroot and whiskey. The business prospered and by the mid-century, Robert Garrett and Sons were leaders in trade, shipping, railroads and finance. They and their descendants rose to an extraordinary level of influence in the economic, social and civic affairs of the city, the state and the nation., In 1981, the partners of the law firm of Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman, Hoffberger and Hollander purchased the building and began one of the single largest restoration projects in the history of downtown Baltimore. The project was completed in January, 1984.