Cheney Building, Richardsonian Romanesque commercial building in Hartford, Connecticut.
The Cheney Building is a commercial structure from the late 1870s on Main Street in Hartford, featuring three tiers of reddish-brown sandstone with lighter limestone accents throughout. Large rounded arches create a distinctive patterned band effect across the entire facade.
Built between 1875 and 1876 for Cheney Brothers, a silk manufacturing company, it originally held five small shops on the ground floor with offices upstairs. The construction reflected Hartford's growth as an important industrial and business center during the second half of the 1800s.
The building reveals how wealthy manufacturers combined their businesses and offices under one roof during Hartford's industrial boom. Its design demonstrates the confidence of mill owners who wanted their commercial spaces to reflect their financial success.
The building is located at 942 Main Street and now functions as a Residence Inn by Marriott with retail spaces and restaurants on the ground floor. Visitors can access the public lobby and ground-floor spaces when visiting the hotel, which makes the interior accessible without staying overnight.
The building features asymmetric towers at the Main Street corners, with the street corner tower originally topped by a pyramidal roof that was later removed. This loss of the original roof detail changes how visitors perceive the building's three-dimensional form compared to its intended design.
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