Mount Baker Block Building: The Eye of A 19th Century Commercial Real Estate Bubble

Описание: Constructed in 1889 amidst the apex of Port Townsend’s real estate speculation boom, developer Charles Eisenbeis initially spared little expense on the construction of the Mount Baker Block Building. Eisenbeis was the town’s initial mayor and the Mount Baker Block was constructed following several additional projects that he’d recently completed.

Architecture firm Whiteway & Schroeder designed the Romanesque style building that was originally intended to become a five-story, 96-room hotel. Eisenbeis would scale down the project when he began involved promotionally with another first-class hospitality project.

The building has been clouded with intrigue based on the evident presence of a subterranean level currently accommodating retail and food service outlets. Speculation has persisted that this level accommodated three tunnels once linked to the waterfront. Besides transporting goods to the docks, these tunnels may have provided passageways for forced labor victims unwillingly transported to awaiting ships. Some of the passages are currently blocked off.

The real estate bubble seduced local speculators witnessing the town’s population double. During construction, negotiations were underway with the intercontinental railroad companies to link with Port Townsend. The city envisioned itself as an inevitable New York.

Such illusions become the elasticity upon which dreams are inflated. The railroads bypassed Port Townsend, the Panic of 1893 deflated finances, and some of the most spectacular architecture was simply abandoned or never finished. The bubble had grandly burst. Eisenbeis suspended interior work on the top two floors leaving them only framed in.

The Mount Baker Block Building would suffer radically from vacancies upon completion, but eventually rebound. For the next century, the ground level thrived with various retail tenants. In 1987, descendants of the Eisenbeis family sold the building to the Mount Baker Corporation headed by Sam Kyle. Commercial office space and artist studios would sustain the second floor. The third floor would remain incomplete until 1990 and the fourth floor underwent a one-year renovation in 1998.

Background Music is downloaded from YouTube Audio Library. The work includes: “Rainbow Road” by Jeremy Korpas.