Palmetto Building
1400 Main Street

Perhaps one of the most intricately ornamented structures in Columbia, the Palmetto Building opened its doors in 1913. Surpassing its neighbor, the sole skyscraper in the city now known as the Barringer Building, this goliath stretched fifteen stories into the sky. The 215-foot structure housed the Palmetto National Bank originally, but is now an office complex.

Julius Harder of the architectural firm Israels and Harder designed the Gothic building using the latest technology - steel framing.

The façade reflects another contemporary design element as well, the use of columnar grouping.

Reflecting the typical three-part division of a column, the Palmetto Building's first two floors, or base, are set apart by the use of the Indiana limestone. This material's softness allows for the intricate carvings visible at this level of the building. The shaft of a column, and the shaft of this building, is less ornamented.

The ten floors above the base are covered with glazed cream-colored terra cotta. Offering uninterrupted vertical lines between the windows , the shaft draws the eye upward to the capital of the column-like structure. The top three stories repeat the unique palmetto carvings of the base. Crested by a copper cornice and stone parapet, the capital of the "column" is the most ornately designed part of the Palmetto Building's exterior.

The interior of this building rivals the opulence of the façade. A marble mosaic on the floor of the lobby echoes the palmetto motif of the exterior, and rich materials like mahogany and marble welcome customers into a grandeur reserved for the finest of structures. Agricultural designs from the stone and terra cotta are repeated in the interior, with the cotton boll and leaf, the corn and the vine appearing in the design of the floor and ceilings. The bronze door handles are throughout the building, and they even carry the theme with miniature palm trees.

At the time of construction, the building housed the latest in building technology. Completely fireproof, the structure offered two separate stairwells, marble stair treads, and three elevators. Incomplete at the time of a violent storm, however, some of the steel frame was bent by a passing tornado. The frame is still warped, and is rumored by some workers to be the cause of elevators getting stuck between floors.

Offering several amenities, the Palmetto Building originally boasted a year-round roof garden café. The basement was also been home to a beauty parlor for several generations. For the past several years, Sherlock Holmes Pub has catered to the Main Street lunch crowd from the basement.

This architectural gem was threatened with demolition two decades ago to make way for a hotel/convention center. It cost $420,000 to build in 1913, but the estimated renovations to create offices or apartments ran from $575,000 to $800,000 in 1980. The Columbia Landmarks Commission even approved a conditional demolition permit in March of that year to the building's owners, but area preservationists formed the Palmetto Heritage Group to lobby support for saving the building. Their efforts to raise awareness and gain publicity about the importance of the building paid off, and the structure still stands intact today, a testament to the success of local preservation efforts led by private citizens.

Recently the Palmetto has gone into bank ownership and is available for purchase for around 2 million dollars. Given the potential in the Main Street area, this would be a wonderful opportunity to revitalize one of its most recognizable buildings. As of the summer of 2004, developer Rick Patel plans to turn the building into an upscale hotel.

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