Peeling back time

After 35 years of being seemingly frozen in time, the mid-century facade of the old Imperial Hardware Company store in downtown Riverside is no more.

The city, which recently finalized purchase of the long-shuttered building, began dismantling Imperial’s modern false front early Monday. By midday, nearly three-fourths of the aluminum covering had been removed, revealing the 1930s facade of the former Westbrook’s Hardware, which surprisingly looked to be in very good shape.

The building itself dates back to at least 1900 when Franzen’s Hardware opened within the current building located at 3750 Main Street. Owned by Henry and Chris Franzen, the hardware store was later sold in 1921 to R. H. Westbrook, whose family had become partners with the Franzen’s in 1908.

Following a 1935 fire that wiped out most of the store’s stock, the building was refurbished, restocked, and renamed Westbrook’s Hardware. Part of the post-fire remodeling included the now-uncovered California Deco-Moderne facade. Designed by renowned Riverside architect, Henry L. A. Jekel, the style — a trend that arose in the 1930s following the Great Depression — is considered a stripped-down and less exuberant version of earlier Art Deco styles.

In 1959, the operation was again sold, this time to El Centro-based Imperial Hardware Company, a small chain of hardware and housewares stores in Southern California. The sale would soon result in the now gone, mid-century false front.

However, with the retail landscape in downtown Riverside — and American downtowns in general — on the brink of change, Imperial’s fate would soon be sealed. By the mid-1960s, long-standing downtown stores, such as Sears, had mostly moved into larger buildings located in suburban settings, sending downtown’s retail landscape into a tailspin. From what we’ve been able to gather, it appears Imperial succumbed sometime in the late 1960s, leaving the building to sit patiently for re-use that has yet to materialize. (Update: According to a June 19th, 2007 article in the Riverside Press-Enterprise, Imperial Hardware closed the downtown store in 1972 and moved to the then-relatively new Tyler Mall. We actually remember Imperial still being at the mall — near May Co. — during the mid- to late-1970s).

And yet, because the building’s front remained unchanged for a number of years — all the while other storefronts nearby had been refurbished — the modern Imperial facade had become an iconic landmark of downtown in its own right. In essence, the facade stood as a relic hearkening back to when downtown was still the epicenter for shopping. In recent years, the former store’s front entrance has been adorned with colorful murals and art.

Though we admit to initially having mixed feelings about the loss of the modern Imperial facade, no doubt what lurked beneath is quite a blessing itself. And if refurbished, will indeed add historic character to Riverside’s pedestrian mall. Our hope is that the city, which has been courting potential retail and dining uses, is able to retain the Jekel-designed facade into any re-working of the building.

Without a doubt, the spot near the center of the pedestrian mall offers a very unique opportunity, possibly for just the right national retailer — such as a bookstore or mid-level restaurant — which could help in drawing a larger presence to the resurgent pedestrian mall. We even feel a mixed-use development incorporating ground floor commercial topped with residential uses would work very well — so long as much of the existing building’s historic character could be worked into such a plan (which would greatly add to both nighttime and weekend activity along the pedestrian mall).

Update

• Riverside Press-Enterprise – Work in downtown Riverside reveals art deco front (June 19)

Related

• RaincrossSquare.com – Then & Now – Main at Mission Inn (March 2007) | Out & About – 09/16/2006

Sources: City of Riverside, Riverside Press-Enterprise (PE-20070619), “Riverside in Postcards” (Steve Lech), “Riverside – 1870-1940 (Steve Lech), “Henry L. A. Jekel: Architect of Eastern Skyscrapers and the California Style, 1895-1950” (H. Vincent Moses & Catherine Whitmore)

2024 PAGE UPDATE: Added context and updated style of facade to California Deco-Moderne; removed outdated links to newspaper article.