Completed 1889 Developer Cleveland Quarries | Floor count 13 | |
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Type Office (1889-1999)
Hotel (2007-present) Location 1 Court Street, Boston, Massachusetts Architect Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge | ||
The Ames Building is a skyscraper located in Boston, Massachusetts. It is sometimes ranked as the tallest building in Boston from its completion in 1893 until 1915, when the Custom House Tower was built. However, the building was never the tallest structure in Boston. The steeple of the Church of the Covenant, completed in 1867, was much taller than the Ames Building. Nevertheless, it is considered to be Boston's first skyscraper. In 2007, the office building was converted to a luxury hotel.
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History
Located at 1 Court Street and Washington Mall in downtown Boston, the Ames Building was designed by the architectural firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge in Richardsonian Romanesque and paid for by Frederick L. Ames. It is the second tallest masonry load bearing-wall structure in the world, exceeded only by the Monadnock Building in Chicago, completed that same year. It is thirteen stories high with a three-story granite base and sandstone and brick. The sandstone is from the Berea formation in Ohio and was supplied by Cleveland Quarries Company. Construction was completed in 1889, but interior work was not completed for occupancy until 1893. It became the corporate headquarters for the Ames families' agricultural tool company.
The Ames Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 26, 1974 and later designated as a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 1993.
Renovations
After being unoccupied for eight years, the building was purchased in April 2007 by Eamon O’Marah, Rich Kilstock and Seth Greenberg (Ames Hotel Partners, LLC) and Normandy Real Estate Partners for $17.7 million. Renovations to the building were performed by Tishman Construction Corporation of New York based on a design by Cambridge Seven Associates and with oversight provided by Walsh Co. LLC of Morristown, New Jersey.
Hotel
Since 2009, the Ames Building has been doing business as a luxury boutique hotel under the name of The Ames Boston Hotel.