Raleigh’s Montague Building: An Historical Vacancy
Downtown Raleigh’s Montague Building offers a commanding presence over E. Hargett St. at Moore Square. Faced in buff-yellow pressed brick, the palazzo-like building is the most prominent in the 100 block, and in recent years has become a symbol of the renaissance of Hargett St. This substantial three-story masonry structure was built in 1912 by Raleigh attorney B.F. Montague.
Soon after its construction Montague rented the building to the US government as temporary space for Raleigh’s post office while the Fayetteville St. building was being enlarged and renovated. After the post office moved out three years later, only a few storefronts were subsequently rented out. Although Montague’s own law firm, Montague and Bonner, continued to occupy offices on the 2nd floor, the building remained largely vacant thereafter.
Around 1915 or so E. Hargett St. was beginning its transformation into Raleigh’s downtown African-American business district. The urban legend I’ve always heard is that Montague refused to rent to black professionals and that white professionals did not want to rent offices on a ‘black’ street — thus the building remained virtually empty for the next two and half decades, while Hargett St. itself burgeoned and flourished.
Although a few of the street level storefronts were at times occupied by various wholesale operators, maybe a ‘mom ‘n pop’ type business or two, and a meat market and later a grocery occupied the corner space, the second and third office floors remained vacant. In the late 1930s and early 1940s they were occupied by US government WPA programs. But the Montague Building never really realized its full potential as an office building.
As Raleigh’s “Black Main Street†era faded into history in the early 1960s, the forlorn Montague Building seemed destined for a similar fate.
The Delaney Building (1926) as seen from the 3rd floor of the Montague Building.
Looking up Blount St. from Montague toward the Marbles Kid’s Museum.
Prior to the first restoration effort in the mid-1980s, the Montague Building had sat vacant and abandoned for more than a decade. One or two small shops sometimes occupied the storefronts, but as I remember the building in the 1970s it was always vacant and boarded up. The derelict at that time seemed to me, locked in time. By the late 70s it had been condemned by the city and faced demolition. According to a 1986 Raleigh Times article, the Montague Building, then characterized as a ‘pigeon roost’ and ‘freeloader hotel,’ was gutted and underwent a $2 million rehabilitation.
The Times article reported an amusing incident that occurred during Montague’s rehab. A former seamstress, once employed in the building, approached the construction foreman and asked to enter the work site. When asked why, she replied “I left my sewing machine in there!†(“Renovation giving historic building new lease on life.†Raleigh Times, April 22, 1986)
Within a year or so, plans were underway to open a jazz club on the first floor, but as far as I can recall nothing ever came of that project. Although one or two street level storefronts were rented out at this time, the building lacked a major tenant until 1996 when Caffe Luna opened in the corner space. Among just a handful of downtown restaurants open at the time during the evening hours, Caffe Luna thrived. In a few short years the popular eatery occupied the entire first floor. During this time, however, the 2nd and 3rd floors of the Montague remained vacant.
In this century, tenancy in the Montague Building has fared much better than in previous years. A public relations firm moved into a second floor space in 2005. Shortly thereafter, an engineering firm rented the still vacant 3rd floor, made some renovations, but apparently never fully occupied the space. The 3rd floor then remained vacant for the next two years. Enter attorney Kieran Shanahan. In 2007 he purchased the Montague Building and rehabbed the empty 3rd floor for his law firm. (Anybody else see some irony here?) Since then, several businesses have joined the PR firm on the 2nd floor, and the once-vacant basement floor is now home to a women’s center. The restaurant on the street level floor continues to thrive.
The history of the Montague Building has been a curious one, but it has weathered the hard times and is now a landmark of successful rehabilitation on a revitalized Hargett St.
Author’s note: Currently making their offices in the Montague Building are the Shanahan Law Group (3rd floor); blast! PR, Giant Head (three businesses operate out of this space), TriangleBlvd.TV (2nd floor); Caffe Luna (1st floor); and The Women’s Center (basement floor). Special thanks to Hollis Guerra for her valuable assistance with this article.
Historical footnote: Below is the former B.F. Montague home (built ca 1882) at 313 New Bern Ave. I took this Kodak Instamatic photo during its demolition in 1966.
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02/25/2009
I seem to remember the Cream and Bean having a store on the first floor in 2003 and 2004. The other location was on Hillsborough Street near the Wing Zone. The coffee wasn’t great but it was nice to have an ice cream parlor in downtown Raleigh.
Interesting story about the long-time vacancy!
02/25/2009
Stupid racist lawyer! Nice article, RB. I, too, remember the Cream and Bean quite well. I used to stop in for some ice cream and/or coffee sometimes, and I distinctly remember that they had only heavy cream to put in the coffee. Also, there was never anyone in there.
02/25/2009
Amazing that such a stately building has such a long history of vacancy.
02/25/2009
Capital Area Preservation, a Wake County preservation organization, occupied the second floor of the building for a year or two around 2000. I was a member of their Revolving Fund Committee at the time. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific about the dates, but I have a lousy memory and I have not been involved with the organization for quite a while.
02/25/2009
RB – great photos and a great story!
why was Montague’s house torn down in the 60s? What is there today?
02/26/2009
All– Thanks for the comps. Hmm, Cream and Bean…Don’t remember it. I guess it didn’t last long– Ben’s last sentence tells it all, I suppose. I do remember the Hillsboro St store– across from the bell tower.
LG– I’m with ya– My memory doesn’t kick in unless the event happened more than 10 years ago.
JM– Thanks– I have a good teacher!
Here’s the story on B.F. Montague’s New Bern Ave house: Built ca 1882 when all of New Bern was still residential. He died in the late 1920s and his widow Bettie continued to live there until well into the 1940s. A commercial real estate developer lived there in the 1950s, during which time the neighborhood began to change (i.e. run down). By 1962 it was vacant. The house was demolished in 1966 when the 300 block of New Bern and the old Morson high school nearby were taken out and replaced by the current Federal Building. Montague’s house was replaced by the Greyhound bus station. When it later relocated, the building was renovated and is now the New Bern Ave post office.
02/26/2009
In his book of interesting Raleigh tales, Marshall Lancaster tells a story of the Montague building. The Spauldings, a very prominent black family from Durham, purchased the building sometime before the end of Jim Crow. One of the Spauldings’ sons was in Raleigh, meeting with one of the tenants and decided afterwards to visit a soda fountian on the first floor. After ordering, he was told he couldn’t consume the soda at the counter and must go out on the sidewalk. The Spauldings, it is said, found another tenant for the space after the soda fountian’s lease was up.
02/26/2009
TW– hmmm, I hadn’t heard that before– didn’t turn up in my research. Do you know the source of Marshall Lancaster’s info? This may warrant further investigation!
02/27/2009
The story is told on page 141 of the Lancaster’s book ‘Raleigh: An Unorthodox History of NC Capital’. He gives a bibliography, but does not indicate which source each story is pulled from. He mentions in the introduction that all stories, to be included, must come from two different sources. This book was published in the early 90’s by Downhome Press.
02/27/2009
TW– This is a long reply, so get ready!
Yes, yesterday I went to DH Hill and checked out Lancaster’s book. The bibliography is extensive, but I can’t fathom why the text entries aren’t cited. This book is organized oddly– just a string of ‘events’ loosely connected by subject. Even after reading the introduction I’m not sure what the story here is he is trying to tell. Anyway, I found the reference you cited re: the Spaulding family and the Montague Building. But without proper citation, I have doubts about the statement’s validity.
I found a reference in the bibliography to a thesis written about the Montague Building by a 5th year architecture student in 1983. So I got a copy of that from the Design Library today. He cites an N.C. Div. of Archives and History description and history of the building, but there is no mention anywhere of ownership by the Spauldings. He does mention that at the time of his writing, the building was being held in trust for the Norris family.
From the Wake Co. Register of Deeds I found that the Norris’ sold the building to Clearscapes architectural firm (Steve Shuster) in 1985, who in turn sold it to Kieran Shanahan in 2007. At some point I plan to attempt to trace the deed of ownership back further.
03/10/2009
Speaking of the Morson school building, does anyone have any pictures of that building while it was being demolished? I am interested in seeing pictures of this. It was such a beautiful building, and such a shame to be replaced with what is there today…NOTHING to look at LOL>
03/10/2009
Jamie — Well, as a matter of fact, I do! I attended Hugh Morson (junior high) in the mid-60s and documented its demo over the course of several months with my Kodak Instamatic camera. The old Meredith College building — aka ‘The Castle’ — on Blount St. was also being demolished at about the same time (as was most of Blount Street).
http://goodnightraleigh.com/2009/01/raleighs-own-castle/
http://goodnightraleigh.com/2008/06/reminiscences-of-raleigh-boy-part-1/
Look for a post from Raleigh Boy on the Hugh Morson demo soon!
08/22/2009
Um, on behalf of the “pioneers” and my colleagues from downtown, I would like to clarify that there was quite a bit of activity on the first level of the Montague Building in the late 80’s and early 90’s. With all due respect to Caffe Luna, they came much later. From 1989-1992, I worked in Peden Gallery II as a Gallery Assistant (Raleigh Contemporary Gallery shared the next door space (the two galleries occupied the Caffe Luna space). Chef David Mao (of Duck and Dumpling fame now) owned the ABACUS restaurant on the corner (with the great dragon sculpture on the inside). The City Gallery of Contemporary Art was around the corner (where Tir Na Nog is now). We used to wake up the sleeping homeless everyday when we arrived at the gallery (they liked to sleep on our doorstep). BANKS Fine Food was across Hargett and they served free meals to the homeless regularly. The fountains in the back were on every day back then. First Friday consisted of four or five galleries and we all served wine to the visitors. The Grove was a great music spot (where Pour House is now) and it also hosted the very first “NCSU Art to Wear” fashion show. A band named Pine State played the last show there and everyone threw beer bottles at the corrugated metal wall behind them (a la the Blues Brothers). There were some hookers downtown back then and some drug activity in front of the galleries. It was different then but it was great working at a gallery after class at NCSU. We had great artists too; Claude Howell, Lope Max Diaz, Gina Gilmour, Bob Irwin, etc. It is all gone now.
03/03/2013
My father owned a furniture store that occupied the first floor of the Montague building in the mid to late 60’s. I remember a fire bombing through the back door when Martin Luther King was killed. There was a lot of debris and antiques stored in the basement at the time. The glass blocks actually provided light in the basement. The pigeons occupied the second floor at the time.
03/03/2013
Sorry, the glass blocks in the sidewalk provide light in the basement.
10/22/2013
An additional occupant of the Montague according to Carl Goerch’s “Corporate Biography of Durham Life Insurance,” c. 1963: Durham Life Insurance Company, est. 1906, relocated to Raleigh from Durham in 1920 (never changing its name). From that time ’til 1927ish, DL occupied at least part or most of the Montague Building.
From there, Durham Life moved to the Pullen Building at Davie and Fayetteville Streets; then in 1942 it moved into its own building–the new Insurance Building–the art-deco mini-tower on Fayetteville Street that is now a Wake Co. Office Building. In the early 70s, Durham Life moved to the campus on Wycliff Road along w/ Martin Marietta Materials. Durham Life sold out to Capital Holding of Louisville, KY circa 1992, and its name went away with its parts either being spun off or absorbed into Capital Holding Corp.
04/21/2015
I first moved onto the 2nd floor in 2003 with a company named “Giant Head Interactive”. I have remained in the space for 12 years now, but my be moving out soon. The owner of the building at the time was Clearscapes who was involved in buying several downtown building to save and upfit them. They had done a wonderful job on the interior of this building. 90 year old hardwood floors and all of the windows still slid up and opened to the street. It was wonderful. Business people you knew would yell up from the sidewalk to see if you wanted to go to lunch. It was so different from the corporate office parks I was used to. It was like working outside it was so open and airy. The “Cream and Bean” was a tiny little place and on the first floor on Hargett next to cafe luna and just to the left of the main building entrance. The owner also had a location on Hillsborough Street and sold ice cream he made himself along with coffee. The ice cream was very hit or miss. Some were amazing, and the others I can only refer to as “failed concoctions”. He also had a hot fudge machine that everyone fear since it never seemed to be cleaned. Just more fudge put on top. Once it went of business, Cafe Luna turned the space it was in into a storeroom for the restaurant. As for the large windows on the 2nd and 3rd floor that opened to the street, after several complaints about the AC or heat being bad in the building the owners hermetically sealed the whole building, and one of it’s greatest distinguishing attributes was gone forever and it was never quite the same being there. I changed my company name to “Plaid Skirt Marketing” some years later and it remained that until being bought in 2013. Other tenants in the building included an investment firm for the university pension program, triangle blvd, DNA, El Torro interactive, Blast PR, HereWare, and others mostly in the internet/digital marketing space. The women’s center moved out of the basement some time around 2010 and the basement was gutted into one large open space and has sat empty ever since. You can go down there now and see the lights shining through the bricks in the side walk all around. It’s really pretty cool. The fountains in the grass area next to the building are actually owned by the city, but the grass lot is part of the building property. It’s great building.