Lawler Motor Company Building - St. Joseph, Missouri - Wikipedia Entries on Waymarking.com

The Lawler Motor Company Building at 1224 Frederick Avenue, St. Joseph, Buchanan County, Missouri occupies the southwest corner of 13th Street and Frederick Avenue, less than one mile northeast of St. Joseph's central business district. The small-scale mixed-use building with simple architectural styling was designed as an automobile showroom and service center, with a second-story apartment. The Lawler Motor Company Building has all of the requisite design elements necessary for a successful business of this type: large plate glass windows, an open floorplan, and multiple vehicular entrances. The building has a unique trapezoidal shape. The primary massing parallels the north-south orientation of 13th Street, but the front facade aligns with Frederick Avenue, which runs at an angle to the city's orthogonal street grid. The brick walls rest on a concrete and limestone foundation. The site slopes down away from Frederick Avenue so that the basement level is at grade on the south elevation. The overall vertical form of the building is L-shaped; only the front third of the building has a second story. The rear two-thirds of the building is only one story, although the basement level is increasing visible towards the rear of the building due to the change in grade. The first story is divided into the former showroom in the front third and the service area in the rear two-thirds. The comer of the building, at the intersection, is canted and contains the main pedestrian entrance. There are two walls of large plate glass windows in the former showroom area. There is one vehicular entrance to the first story from Frederick Avenue at the northwest comer of the building and one vehicular entrance to the basement at the southeast corner of the building. The second story was designed as an apartment with typical residential divisions of space and architectural details. The second-story asphalt roof is flat and the roof over the rear service area deteriorated due to the inadequate design of the original wood truss system. Although the interior finishes of the former showroom have been altered, the design of the space has remained the same. The building retains architectural integrity and clearly communicates its historic associations with the early automobile industry.