Barker Brothers Building, also known as Sassony Building and The Barker, is a historic seven-story building located at 722 S.

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

in the Broadway Theater District in the historic core of

downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...

History

Barker Brothers Building, built in 1909, was designed by Robert Brown Young, the architect responsible for several buildings on

, including

O. T. Johnson Block O.T. Johnson Block, also known as O.T. Johnson Block #4, is a historic three-story building located at 350 S. Broadway in the Broadway Theater District in the historic core of downtown Los Angeles. History O. T. Johnson block was designed as ...

, Forve-Pettebone Building, J. E. Carr Building,

Lankershim Hotel Hotel Lankershim was a landmark hotel located at 7th Street and Broadway in the Broadway Theater District in downtown Los Angeles's historic core. History Hotel Lankershim was designed by Robert Brown Young for James Boon Lankershim, whom t ...

, Gebhard Building, and more, and built by Clara Burdette. The building's original tenant was

Barker Bros. Barker Bros. was a retailer of furniture, home furnishings, and housewares based in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded as Barker and Mueller in 1880, the business operated under various names through 1992. History Obadiah Truax Ba ...

, who were headquartered in the building from 1909 to 1926. Upon opening, the building was marketed as "California's largest popular priced furniture store." In 1979, the

Broadway Theater and Commercial District The Broadway Theater District in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch ...

was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

, with Barker Brothers Building listed as a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic dist ...

in the district. Barker Brothers Building was sold for $7.8 million in 2013 and $8.4 million in 2014 . In 2016, Satila Studios bought the building for $14.5 million , after which they rehabilitated it and converted it into offices with ground floor retail. The rehabilitation was part of the

Bringing Back Broadway Bringing Back Broadway is a public–private partnership begun in 2008 and led by Councilmember José Huizar, with Executive Director Jessica Wethington McLean, to revitalize the historic Broadway corridor of Los Angeles. Goals are to provide econ ...

initiative.

Architecture and design

Barker Brothers Building is made of

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...

, and

brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

with a pressed-brick facade. The building originally featured

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

and lugsills, but they were removed. The

United States Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the management and conservation ...

described the building as "plain but restorable" when they included it as a

in the

. The building's interior features dark wood flooring and a grand stairway with large-scale

arch An arch is a curved vertical structure spanning an open space underneath it. Arches may support the load above them, or they may perform a purely decorative role. As a decorative element, the arch dates back to the 4th millennium BC, but stru ...

ways and wooden

columns A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member ...

References

{{LABTCD Commercial buildings completed in 1909 Buildings and structures in Downtown Los Angeles Historic district contributing properties in California 1900s architecture in the United States Broadway (Los Angeles)

History

Architecture and design

See also

References