Town Hall Arts Center

Town Hall Arts Center. Local Government Seat. , Historic Town Hall stands in the middle of Littleton’s four-block Main Street and provides the focal point of its downtown area. A bond issue was approved in April 1919 to fund the project at 2450 West Main Street. It replaced the town hall purchased by the city in 1898 on the same site. In 1902 the city added a brick extension to bring the building up to the front sidewalk and rented the new space to county officials. The public library was also housed in rooms in the front of the brick addition. , The building now at 2450 West Main was constructed in 1920 and served as the seat of local government and as a community gathering place from then until 1977, when the Littleton Center was built at 2255 West Berry Avenue. , The second story boasts beautifully molded terra cotta in seven horizonal bands. Eagles, common to Colorado, appear over the lancet points of the windows. The state flower, the columbine, is found in the seven bands. The windows represent the combination of the Italian Renaissance and Gothic Revival styles. , The first floor housed the city offices and council chamber, and the town’s fire truck. The truck could pass in and out through one of the arches. A slanting floor was installed (which still exists) so that when the truck was washed, the water ran through the doors and into the street. The entire second story was an assembly hall. Also in the building were the police department and city jail, although the jail may have been a detached building at the rear. When completed, the building was described as the finest architectural example in the country of a town hall for a small community. , Jules Jacques Benois Benedict was the chosen architect. He had designed the city’s Carnegie Public Library in 1916 and because of the beautiful work he had done on that building, it was felt he would, as a Littleton resident, work hard to make the town hall an architecturally distinctive structure. He was commissioned to design a multi-purpose building with a dominating façade that also expressed the town’s development during the 60 years prior to its construction. The features which he designed “suggested aspiration, purpose, and action.” , The flamboyant Benedict was by then one of the foremost architects of the west. He was renowned for his period architecture and fine attention to detail. He had been greatly influenced by his education at the Beaux-Arts School of Architecture in Paris. Town Hall is an Italian Renaissance revival design, popular during the early 20th century. The building is clad in architectural terra cotta with two types being utilized, a smooth face to resemble stone and one with a rougher face. Projecting piers from the building support a decorative tile hipped roof. The primary roof is flat and invisible from the street. The triple-arched arcade is the dominant feature of the façade and gives the building its Italian Renaissance feel.