Northern Brewery

The significance of the Northern Brewery Building relies as much on its history and use as it does on its architectural character. It is one of the oldest commercial structures in the area. Architecturally, the building is representative of two distinct architectural styles--one Late Victorian, the other industrial. For the first thirty years of its existence the Northern Brewery produced beer for the Washtenaw County area. In the late nineteenth century, brewing beer was a small-scale, local affair due to the problems of refrigeration and transportation. In the early twentieth century, as problems with refrigeration were reduced and as problems with unionization increased, the brewing industry shifted to a large volume, regional type of operation. This spelled the death for local breweries such as the Northern Brewery. The Northern Brewery is presently one of only three brewery facilities still in existence in Ann Arbor. It retains a strong identity with its beer-producing past in the two subterranean vaults that stored ice (a necessary element in the lagering process for fermenting the beer). Furthermore, the Northern Brewery is located over a pure water spring which was used in the production of beer and also in the production of ice. The spring water is still enjoyed today by thousands of individuals who purchase the spring water from the Arbor Spring Water Company. The Northern Brewery was converted in 1922 to the Ann Arbor Foundry. The industrial use of the building continued for a period of fifty years. The Ann Arbor Foundry was a pioneering minority business enterprise in the Ann Arbor/Washtenaw County area. The partners in the foundry were Thomas Cook, a Jew, and Charles Baker, a black. Their partnership successfully carried on for over fifty years. In addition to its commercial and industrial significance, the Northern Brewery is architecturally significant. The fine masonry detailing has several elements that make the original brewery building unique in the Ann Arbor area. The most significant architectural element is the central radiating arch on the upper level with its basket-weave, brick, panel infill. This is the sole example of brickwork of this type in the Ann Arbor area. Furthermore, the corbelled-brick cornice has a distinctive design and represents an era of craftsmanship that has long since passed. In summary, the original brewery building conveys a sense of simple, honest dignity that was often achieved in Late Victorian commercial architecture, but which is now found in only a handful of other buildings in Ann Arbor.

The Northern Brewery is a two-story, brick, Late Victorian commercial structure with a handsome, Richardsonian Romanesque-inspired facade. The original, rectangular structure, thirty-eight by fifty-four feet in size, is built over two subterranean vaults. The vaults, used in the beer-lagertng process, run the length of the building and are each sixteen feet wide and a maximum of nine inches high. The side walls of the vaults are of rubble stone, and the vaulted ceilings of brick. The brewery's visual appeal is centered in the facade. Divided into three bays by pilasters, the facade displays broad, segmental-arch or round-head window areas. The central, first-floor archway originally contained the entrance, but was converted into a window in the course of a recent rehabilitation project; as part of the work, brickwork which, in the recent past, filled the arch was removed. Rough-cut stone slabs serve as lintels for the first-floor windows and form decorative courses at the second-story level and the level of the second-story window sills. The arched, central window construction, with its basket-weave, brick, arch panel and patterned-brick window mullion, in the upper level is the brewery's most distinctive feature. Behind the main block is a two-story, thirty-eight by thirty-two-foot rear ell. Like the front section, this wing has pilaster-trimmed walls and corbelled-brick cornices. Some of the windows have segmental-arch tops; others have straight steel lintels. Several one-story, rectangular, block additions (exact dates unknown) were added to the brick brewery building in the years following the structure's 1922 conversion into a foundry. The main addition made by the foundry was a fifty-two by one hundred ten foot, one-story, block structure that housed the majority of the foundry's machinery and die-casting equipment. The window openings in the industrial portion of the structure are simple block openings with steel lintels above. The structural system is comprised of steel columns and beams with steel joist purlins supporting a wood roof deck. The industrial portion of the complex has as a major point of interest a rectangular, twelve by sixty-foot roof monitor, which floods the foundry addition with light. The monitor is of steel construction and has operable steel sash window units. The monitor's physical condition is poor, but it is intended that this unit will be restored to resemble its original condition. The foundry building also retains a five-feet in diameter, and sixty-foot high smokestack. The complex also contains a one-story, rectangular, twenty by one hundred-feet, block out-building that was used to store materials for the foundry. The building is nondescript in character and could be removed without destroying the industrial feeling of the main building.