US Fidelity & Guaranty Company Building
US Fidelity & Guaranty Company Building | |
---|---|
Site Information | |
Address | 131 E Redwood St |
Geo-reference | 39°17′19″N 76°36′45″W / 39.2887°N 76.61239°W |
Design | |
Architect | Theodore Wells Pietsch |
Architecture Firm | Simonson & Pietsch |
Construction | |
Completed | 1906 |
The United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company was an insurance company that existed from 1896 to 1998, whereupon the Saint Paul Companies acquired it for $3.9 billion. On the southwest corner of Calvert and Redwood streets—an area of downtown that a writer for The Baltimore Sun, Jacques Kelly, described as having once been, “The Wall Street of the South”—stands the US Fidelity & Guaranty Company Building (now a Hampton Inn & Suites). This building has been known as the "USF&G Building" as well as the "United States Fidelity Company Headquarters." Under any name, it’s a gem of Beaux-Arts design. Architects Simonson & Pietsch drew up plans for it in 1905, and the next year, construction was completed.
This building was featured in Recent Works of Simonson & Pietsch, published in 1906 (Enoch Pratt Free Library Archives).