Exploring the Cleveland Trust Building's Past and Present

The Cleveland Trust Building has a rich history that spans over a century, and it's fascinating to explore its past and present. The building was originally constructed in 1905 as the headquarters of the Cleveland Trust Company.

Its stunning Beaux-Arts design was a prominent feature of the city's skyline for many years. The Cleveland Trust Building is an iconic example of early 20th-century architecture.

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The Cleveland Trust Building has a rich history that spans over a century. It was built in 1910 by the Swetland family, major real estate developers in downtown Cleveland. The building was 13 stories tall and featured the Chicago school architectural style.

In the early years, the exterior of the building became increasingly dirty, but calls to clean it were largely ignored by the bank. It wasn't until 1964 that the building underwent its first exterior cleaning using abrasive blasting. The exterior was cleaned again in 1971 using a chemical process and coated with a resin to give it a slight cream color.

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The building has undergone significant renovations over the years. In 1972-1973, a major renovation was completed that included the installation of a modern air conditioning system, upgraded heating, lighting, plumbing, and telephone systems. The renovation also saw the removal of the women's parlor and tellers' cages, but the tellers' cage bronze grilles were salvaged and reused for the new tellers' counters.

The Cleveland Trust Company Building underwent a major renovation from 1972 to 1973. The renovation was designed by architect Montgomery Orr of the architectural firm of Frazier, Orr, Fairbanks, and Quam.

The general contractor was Turner Construction, while Hoag-Wismer-Henderson Associates were the structural engineers. The outer wire-glass dome was covered with an opaque weatherproofing material, and the murals and the inner dome lit with an artificial lighting system designed by General Electric.

The inner dome, which had a number of loose panes and was missing others, was repaired and regilded. All the offices on the upper floors were removed, and new, larger offices installed, ranging in size from 5,600 square feet to 8,900 square feet.

The flooring and arched supports on the upper levels were removed, and replaced with 1.5-inch Styrofoam blocks which were covered with a thin layer of concrete. The women's parlor and the tellers' cages were removed, but the tellers' cage bronze grilles were salvaged and reused for the new tellers' counters.

The clear glass of the large windows on Euclid Avenue and E. 9th Street were replaced with smoked glass. A modern air conditioning system was installed in the building, and the heating, lighting, plumbing, and telephone systems all upgraded.

The renovation was completed in April 1973, with Cleveland Trust Company officials hoping to have it finished by March of that year. The building reopened on April 27, 1973.

Cleveland Trust Company was founded in 1894, making it one of the first banks in Cleveland to have branch locations. The bank merged with the Western Reserve Trust Co. in 1903, a move that would eventually lead to the construction of a new headquarters building.

By 1905, the bank had outgrown its rented space and decided to build a new headquarters that would meet its growing needs.

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The Cleveland Trust Building's design is a masterpiece of early 20th-century architecture. The rotunda stands above a five-sided room, with each wall a different size, and features white marble and bronze elements.

The rotunda's interior is impressive, with columns clad in white marble and a drum supporting the dome decorated with carved marble garlands. An elaborate molded plaster frieze runs around the inside of the drum, depicting bags of money, attorney's seals, and keys.

The main entrance on Euclid Avenue leads to a foyer with elevators and stairs to the upper floors. Doors from the foyer lead to the main rotunda, executive offices, and the women's parlor. The first floor contains executive offices, tellers' windows, and a parlor for women customers.

The building's dome is a stunning feature, measuring 85 feet high and 61 feet wide. It's made of concrete with gold gilt frames and features numerous panels of stained lead glass.

The exterior of the building is made of white granite from the North Jay Granite Company, quarried near Jay, Maine.

The site is not square due to the acute angle at which Euclid Avenue intersects with E. 9th Street, which required Post to create 13 bays and columns on each street-facing side of the structure.

Each street-facing side has a bay aligned with the axis of each entrance and the street corner of the building. A portico had been planned for the main entrance, but the site was too small to permit one.

The Euclid Avenue columns support a tympanum filled with the sculpture Finance, while the E. 9th Street side features a mostly empty tympanum with an eagle and shield.

Massive bronze doors are featured at both the Euclid Avenue and E. 9th Street entrances, and the exterior walls are solid granite, unsupported by any other structure.

The corner is chamfered to provide a transition between the two planes of the building, creating a smooth and seamless design.

Thirteen steel columns, arranged in a circle in the center of the building, support the dome overhead, with the columns irregularly spaced to accommodate the building's site and avoid blocking entrances.

Horizontal steel beams run outward from these columns to the outer walls, supporting the upper floors, which were constructed with a concrete base, brick and red tile arched supports, and a wood floor.

The dome of the Cleveland Trust Building is a stunning feature that dominates the interior of the building. It's an 85-foot high, 61-foot wide concrete rotunda that illuminates three of the four lower floors.

The dome's design is quite unique, with 13 segments due to the acute angle of the building site. This unusual design is a result of the site's constraints, which also influenced the placement of the columns.

Embedded in the gold gilt concrete frames of the dome are numerous panels of stained lead glass. These panels depict an intricate, repetitive, green and yellow floral pattern.

A series of small lights, set in bronze rosettes, illuminate the dome from below at night. This adds a touch of elegance to the already impressive dome.

The stained glass was designed and manufactured by D'Ascenzo Studios, a Philadelphia-based artist Nicola D'Ascenzo founded in 1905. D'Ascenzo is often credited with drafting the stained glass design.

To protect the stained glass dome, a dome of wire-mesh reinforced glass was installed 15 feet above the inner dome. This ensures the delicate stained glass panels remain safe and intact.

The Cleveland Trust Building was a significant structure in its time, standing as the third largest bank building in the United States when completed.

It was designed as a four-story building, exclusively for the use of a bank, and its below-ground floor contained a massive 200-short-ton bank vault with a 17-short-ton door.

The building's architectural style was initially described as Renaissance Revival, but opinions on its style varied over the years, with some considering it a mix of Beaux-Arts, Neoclassical, and Renaissance Revival styles.

It was widely praised for being an "ingenious solution to problems posed by an irregular site", a testament to its clever design.

In 2005, Cuyahoga County purchased the tower, the historic Cleveland Trust Company rotunda, and several other surrounding structures from the Jacobs Group for use as the site for a new county headquarters.

The purchase price was $21.7 million, which is equivalent to $42,277,662 in 2023 dollars.

Cuyahoga County initially intended to turn the complex into a new home for county government, but the county considered demolishing the Cleveland Trust Tower.

The county hired the Cleveland architectural firm of Robert P. Madison International and the New York City-based firm of Kohn Pedersen Fox to design a replacement building for the Breuer tower.

The county spent about $13 million removing asbestos from the building and purchasing the adjacent Oppmann parking garage.

A June 2008 Cleveland Magazine article said that the county's own consultants told commissioners that it would be cheaper and more prudent to renovate the tower for its own use.

Federal investigators scrutinized the 2005 purchase of the Ameritrust complex, the attempted sale, and the removal of the asbestos as part of their probe into corruption in the Cuyahoga County government.

In 2012, federal prosecutors alleged that attorney Anthony Calabrese III had offered to bribe county employee J. Kevin Kelley in 2005 if Kelley could convince Dimora to vote to purchase the complex.

The Cleveland Trust Company Building was a four-story structure that was the third largest bank building in the United States when completed.

Its unique design was an ingenious solution to problems posed by an irregular site.

The building was the first to be built exclusively for a bank in downtown Cleveland.

A 200-short-ton bank vault with a 17-short-ton door was located on the below-ground floor, making it the largest in Ohio at the time.

Architects and critics have described the building's architectural style as a mix of Beaux-Arts, Neoclassical, and Renaissance Revival, with some specifically identifying it as Beaux-Arts.

The building's design was widely praised for its innovative approach to a challenging site.

The Cleveland Trust Building's building systems and maintenance were quite impressive for its time. A power plant located in the basement of the adjacent Swetland Building provided electrical needs for the bank.

This power plant was accessible by a tunnel from the Cleveland Trust Building's basement, showing a clear intention to support the bank's operations. The building also had a central vacuum cleaner system.

A pneumatic tube system connected tellers to bookkeepers and each department, making communication and workflow efficient. The building had 76 telephones, a large number for the era, and two private telephone exchanges to accommodate telephone traffic.

The Swetland Building, located on Euclid Avenue, had a power plant in its basement that could provide electricity for the Cleveland Trust Company Building next door. The power plant was accessible through a tunnel from the Cleveland Trust building.

The building had a central power plant that was a separate entity from the Cleveland Trust Company Building. A power plant was located in the basement of the Swetland Building.

A pneumatic tube system connected tellers to bookkeepers and each department in the Cleveland Trust Company Building. This system allowed for efficient communication between different areas of the building.

The building had a telautograph in each department, which enabled a handwritten message to be reproduced at the receiving station. This device was a convenient way to send messages between departments.

The Cleveland Trust Company Building had 76 telephones, which was a large number for the era. Two private telephone exchanges were also installed to accommodate telephone traffic.

A central vacuum cleaner system was built into the building for easy cleaning. The building also had a primitive air conditioning system known as "artificial ventilation" built into the plaster-coated columns.

The basement of the bank was a complex space, divided into three concentric circles. The inner circle contained the main vault, storage vaults, and safe deposit box vault.

The main vault was a massive 16-by-20-foot space, with walls made of structural steel plate, encased in 20 inches of concrete. The steel was provided by the Carnegie Steel Company.

A 6-foot wide access corridor, framed by walls of building tile, connected the inner circle to the rest of the basement. This corridor contained conduits, ducts, and pipes for the building's heating, mechanical, and ventilation systems.

The basement also extended under Euclid Avenue, and contained a board of directors meeting room, a vault for storing bank records, an employee locker room, parlors for customers' use, and coupon rooms. Floors in the basement, except for the access corridor, were made of marble.

The bank had four vaults in total, including the main vault, safe deposit box vault, and storage vaults for fur clothing and household silver. The vault door was manufactured by the L. H. Miller Safe and Iron Works of Baltimore.

The Cleveland Trust Building's art and mystery blend seamlessly together. The building's lobby features a stunning mural by Charles O. Deming, which was completed in 1908.

Deming's mural depicts a scene from the book of Job, showcasing the artist's skill and attention to detail. The mural's intricate design and vibrant colors make it a standout feature of the building.

The Cleveland Trust Building's mysterious past is also worth exploring. The building was originally constructed as a bank, and its vault was designed to be impenetrable.

The exterior sculpture of the Cleveland Trust Company building is a masterpiece of early 20th-century art.

Karl Bitter, a renowned sculptor, designed and carved the 11-by-56-foot sculpture titled Finance, which was unveiled on October 8, 1907.

The work depicts a female goddess of commerce and finance seated on a throne, surrounded by gods bringing her the products of land and sea to sell.

Bitter's design was a turning point in his career, marking his transition from classicism to developing his own style.

A sculptural work by Bitter, depicting the company's coat of arms, adorns the 9th Street tympanum, adding to the building's artistic allure.

Finance, the main sculpture, is a testament to the artistic vision of the Cleveland Trust Company, which sought to create a lasting impression on the city's landscape.

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The murals in the building were a collaborative effort between the Cleveland Trust Company and artist Francis David Millet. Millet was hired in the fall of 1908 to design and paint the murals.

Millet developed a design for the murals and created a full-size "cartoon" to ensure the design worked visually. He then sketched and painted 13 smaller versions of the murals, each about 18 inches in height and 3 to 4 feet in width.

The small paintings were scaled up and transferred to manila paper using charcoal sticks. Millet and his assistants spent a year transferring the design to the walls, completing the work in late December 1909 or early January 1910.

The murals, titled "The Development of Civilization in America", depict various scenes in American history, including "The Norse Discoverers" and "Father Hennepin at Niagara Falls." Each mural was 15.5 by 4.5 feet in size.

The paintings feature a simple color scheme, with broad fields of deep blue, deep green, and bright red. The horizon line in each mural aligns with the horizon line in the adjacent murals, ensuring that the paintings can be seen from the ground floor 40 feet below.

The mystery surrounding the designer of the Stained Glass Dome has finally been solved. Louis Comfort Tiffany is credited with designing the stunning glass ceiling.

Tiffany was a renowned American artist and designer who was known for his beautiful and intricate glasswork. He was the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, the founder of Tiffany & Co. jewelry store.

The Stained Glass Dome is a masterpiece of Tiffany's work, featuring over 1,000 pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope of colors. It's a breathtaking sight to behold.

Tiffany's design for the dome was a result of his fascination with the art of stained glass and his desire to create a sense of wonder and awe in those who saw it.

Construction on the Cleveland Trust Building began in December 1905 and took nearly two years to complete, finishing on December 28, 1907.

The estimated cost of the structure was initially $600,000, but the final cost rose to $1 million due to construction delays.

Several serious accidents occurred at the construction site, including a fatality when a workman, William Crouch, was struck in the head by falling debris on August 25, 1906.

The Cleveland Trust Company occupied its new headquarters on January 1, 1908, after the building was finally completed.

The building was later closed in December 1996 as part of a wide-ranging closure of numerous KeyCorp branches, after the company centralized its operations in Key Tower.

Construction on the new bank building began in earnest in April 1905 with salvage work on the existing structures, followed by demolition in May.

Demolition was halfway complete by June 18, 1905, marking a significant milestone in the project.

The estimated cost of the structure was $600,000, a substantial investment for its time.

Construction continued throughout 1906, with several serious accidents occurring at the site, including a bricklayer who fell from scaffolding and fractured his skull and wrist.

In April 1907, the builders estimated that the structure would be finished by November 1, but construction delays prevented the building from being completed until December 28, 1907.

The final cost of the structure had risen substantially, to $1 million, a significant increase from the initial estimate.

Construction was estimated to last 400 days, but in reality, it took nearly two years to complete, with the Cleveland Trust Company occupying its new headquarters on January 1, 1908.

The Cleveland Trust Company Building was sold to the Richard E. Jacobs Group for $10 in 1996.

KeyCorp agreed to this extremely low purchase price because it had assumed control of Society Center.

The building was no longer needed after KeyCorp centralized its banking operations in Key Tower, which was previously Society Center.

Both the Cleveland Trust Company Building and the Cleveland Trust Tower closed in December 1996.

The building was open to the public only sporadically between 1997 and 2004.

It was open for nearly a week in April 2005 for "Ingenuity Fest".

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