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Overview

Seattle architect John W. Maloney designed the 11-story Art Deco highrise, the A.E. Larson Building, completed during the depths of the Depression in 1931.

Building History

Architectural historians Sally Woodbridge and Roger Montgomery, in their Guide to Architecture in Washington State: An Environmental Perspective, said of the Larson Building: "Over the first half of the twentieth century a respectable set of buildings grew up to embellish downtown [Yakima] and give it a distinct image. Among them Maloney's Larson Building serves as the exemplary regional counterpart of Albertson's magnificent Seattle Tower, the masterpiece of Moderne architecture in the state." The authors exulted in the Art Deco/Streamline Moderne exterior: "It is both Yakima's principal landmark and its most interesting architectural jewel. On the exterior, setbacks in the then most fashionable mode give it a characteristic profile; and a rich materials palette of salmon-covered brick, black granite, travertine, bronzr, terra cotta, and copper enlivens the surfaces." (See Sally Woodbridge and Roger Montgomery, Guide to Architecture in Washington State: An Environmental Perspective, [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1980], p. 377-378.)

The building was named for Adelbert Everard Larson (1862-1934), who, in 1932, was President of the Sunshine Mining Company and Vice-President of the Yakima 1st National Bank. (See R.L. Polk and Company's Yakima, Washington, City Directory, 1932, p. 232.)

In 1984, the building was owned by Larson Associates of Bellevue, WA.

The first floor retail spaces have been remodeled several times, once very obtrusively by a bank.

PCAD id: 4734