Washington Boulevard Building

The Washington Boulevard Historic District is significant as an intact streetscape of architecturally distinguished commercial buildings dating from 1901-1930 with a majority built in the 1920s. The buildings individually represent some of the finest early Twentieth Century architecture in Detroit and as a group illustrate the evolution of the commercial style in Detroit as it was practiced by some of Michigan's master architects. The district is also significant as a product of a planned real estate development inspired by the City Beautiful movement and carried out as the private artistic endeavor of one family and their architect, Louis Kamper.

The building Kamper designed next for the Book brothers is the twenty-one story Wash- ington Boulevard Building at 234 State Street, the northeast corner of Wash- ington Boulevard and State Street, constructed in 1923. This office building is simi- lar in character to the Book Building in its Italian Renaissance detailing, but is constructed of brick with limestone trim. It consists of four stories sheathed in lime- stone surmounted by thirteen floors of regularly spaced articulated fenestration punched into plain red brick walls. The top four floors are set off by a massive molded limestone belt course. The windows are unified into vertical strips separated from the plain attic story fenestration by another limestone belt course. The building is capped with a projecting classical cornice. This commercial building was recently rehabilitated for residential use.