Filed Under Helena

Kleinschmidt Block (Harvard Block)

Helena Historic District

Entrepreneur Reinhold H. Kleinschmidt built this block with five storefronts and upstairs lodging rooms circa 1892. Among his first commercial tenants was Charles Grossman, a wallpaper hanger and painter, whose business was in the corner storefront. A variety of tenants in 1900 included a U.S. bailiff, a photographer, and a Northern Pacific land examiner and their families. In 1905, real estate developer Richard Lockey purchased the building to serve as an annex to his Grandon Hotel and changed its name to the Harvard Block. The Grandon stood diagonally across Sixth Avenue. By 1929, Edward Loney’s barbershop in the corner storefront was the only remaining commercial space and the rest of the building functioned as housing. The building is a stunning example of the flamboyant Victorian-era architecture once common in Helena. Fluted iron columns and scrolled brackets frame the entry while the rounded brick arches on the second story reflect the Romanesque style. A spectacular copper dome originally capped the second-story oriel bay at the southwest corner. These elements contrast with the utilitarian rubble stone walls on the rear and north, common in Helena’s nineteenth-century buildings.

Images

Kleinschmidt Block (Harvard Block)
Kleinschmidt Block (Harvard Block) Kleinschmidt Block (Harvard Block) (PAc 91-51 South Central Helena Roll16 F04). Front to side view of the building, facing northeast on the corner of North Warren Street and East 6th Avenue near the current location of the Chamber of Commerce Building. B&W. Source: Montana State Historic Preservation Office from the Photograph Archives at the Montana Historical Society Creator: Photographer unidentified Date: 1981

Location

301-309 North Warren Street, Helena, Montana | Private

Metadata

The Montana National Register Sign Program, “Kleinschmidt Block (Harvard Block),” Historic Montana, accessed March 29, 2024, https://historicmt.org/items/show/719.