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General T.I. McKenny (1830-1899) commissioned the construction of the McKenny Building in 1889; According to his obituary from the Mason County Journal: "In 1866 he was appointed as superintendent of Indian affairs of Washington Territory, and came to Olympia in 1867. He served 5 years in this capacity, when he resigned and engaged in the real estate business and later in the drug business. He was president of the state hospital for the insane, president of the Olympia and Tenino Railway company, president of the Olympia Hotel company, and builder of the McKenny block on the corner of Fourth and Main streets." (See "General T. I. McKenny Dies," Mason County Journal, 11/17/1899,Accessed 02/14/2013.) Early on, the McKenny Block housed State of Washington offices; around 1900, the Washington Supreme Court tried cases here. This was the court's third office facility. W.H. Kneeland of the Kneeland Investment Company, later owned the building and operated it as an upper-echelon hotel. Retail spaces lined its first floor. In 1908, O.A. Nelson managed the hotel, which boasted long-distance telephone service, a cafe and fireproof conditions. It claimed to be the only Olympia hotel offering long-distance service from every room, and was located conveniently to the State Capitol complex.

The Kneeland Building had its two lower stories covered in rusticated stone, in the manner of contemporary Richardsonian Romanesque examples. Less-costly brick faced the upper two stories. The fenestration had an irregular composition, a vestige of Picturesque asymmetry; the first floor had deeply inset openings, trimmed by rusticated stone, while the second floor featured three bays of twin, double-hung windows deeply inset, while the fourth bay had a thermal, arched window illuminating its interior space. The third and fourth floors had three bays with paired, trabeated, double-hung windows, while a corner bay featured two, arched, double-hung windows. The paired-arch motif continued around the building's corner. Above the top floor arches, the cornice line was sporadically trimmed with vertical, geometric ornamentation, giving the building a hybrid, decorative character.

Between c. 1911 and c. 1920, some of the vertical, geometric ornamentation that originally extended above the cornice was lost.

Demolished; the building was gravely damaged in the Earthquake of 1949 and was demolished soon after. The Goldberg Furniture Store (later known as Schoenfeld's Furniture) occupied the site after 1950.

PCAD id: 18283