AgdaPkt 2016-09-12 Closed and Joint SA PFA

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Alpha Reference: A Historic Name: Bank of San Mateo County Address: 2000 Broadway Construction Date: 1900 Parcel#: 052-374-180 Aside from the San Mateo County Courthouse, the Bank of San Mateo County Building is probably Redwood City's most notable commercial or institutional structure. Its styling, as the architectural historian Richard Longstreth has pointed out in his book, The Buildings of Main Street (Washington, D.C.: 1987, p.39) represented a transition from the Queen Anne style of the 1880s and 1890s to the Neo-Classical mode popular at the beginning of the twentieth-century. A feature retained from the Queen Anne is the corner turret with its dome and profusion of dormers and ornamental details. The turret serves as an eye- catching visual pivot, turning a main corner of the central-business district. Neo- Classical elements include the building's pediments, pilasters, capitals, and ornamental details of the cornice. The elaborateness of this time-honored classical detailing was meant to suggest to early- century observers the wealth and stability of the bank (classical temple fronts were often built by banks to instill confidence in customers). Longstreth also called this building a good example of a two-story commercial block; this type consists of a building with a horizontal division separating the public retail spaces on the first floor from the private office or residential areas on the upper floors. Incorporated in 1891, the Bank of San Mateo County was the first commercial bank on the San Francisco Peninsula. For its first ten years it operated from the Capitol Hotel in the middle of the block. In 1899 the bank purchased the vacant northwest corner lot at Broadway and Main and announced that they would construct the first stone building in the county. Actually, it was a stone veneer and in truth it was the first of its kind in the county. Alfred I. Coffey of Martens & Coffey of San Francisco was commissioned to design a Renaissance style building. Stone shipped from Utah was worked into proper sizes and was surfaced in San Francisco. OE Brady & Son of San Francisco did the masonry work. Bank officials favored Robert Brown, a local contractor and a stockholder in the bank, even though his bid was not the lowest. The building was completed in 1900 and under the ribbed dome above the bay window the inscription reads: ERECTED A.D. 1900. Over the semi-circular colonnade portico another inscription was BANK OF SAN MATEO CO. The latter was chiseled off in 1963, but vague shadows of it are visible. On the scheduled opening day much of the furnishings and the vault had not been delivered, but business was transacted over an improvised counter of a plank stretched between two barrel heads, reportedly beer barrels. Until the vault was completed, the bank's daily receipts were deposited in the county's safe at the Pioneer Store immediately behind the bank Page 16 7.B. - Page 27