The building is hard to miss as you drive down Cannon Street in downtown Charleston and dead end into King Street. The building at 544 King Street used to be an old bank building. This building has been empty for several years vacated by the Bank of America. Built in 1927 this building was built primarily of brick and Indiana Limestone.
The bank is one of the best small surviving works by Simons and Lapham Arhitects, downtown Charleston's most prolific firm in the 1920's and 30's. What makes this building far from ordinary is its recent transformation to a new restaurant in the upper king area of downtown. The Ordinary is the new restaurants name and it is a finalist in the James Beard Foundations "best new restaurant" category.
The buildings open air format has returned in the renovation with a large bar spanning the entire right side of the interior. Quoted in the Post and Courier, architect David Thompson and contractor Mark Regalbuto, "their challenge was to keep the building's sense of history while converting the former bank into an upscale seafood hall and oyster bar with top-notch kitchen."
Banks were built in the 1930's to symbolize strength and security. Similar to monuments we still view as relevant today the legacy of a bank building has been changed by the electronic banking era forever. In many major cities these buildings that were once icons of great institutions are now re-purposed liabilities to most city governments. It is great to see history preserved in such an preservative way and makes us believe that a limestone building built in the 1930 in Charleston will stand tall for generations to come.
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