Louis Alt Building - Courthouse Square Historic District - Lancaster, Wisconsin - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

Historic Name	Address	Date of Construction	Architectural Style
Louis Alt Building	205 West Maple Street	1903-1904	Queen Anne
Another fine example of a building having a second story whose facade is composed of stamped galvanized iron sheets is this Queen Anne style building built for Louis Alt in the first years of the twentieth century. This rectilinear plan, two-story commercial building has brick exterior walls and a main facade that faces south onto West Maple Street. It was originally designed to house a single large store in its first story with additional rental space in the story above. The first story's original storefront, which featured a centered entrance flanked by large display windows, has now been replaced with a modern one, but the entire original second story is still completely intact and is hi excellent condition. This story is symmetrical in design and it is dominated by two three-sided oriel windows that are placed on either side of a single centered window. Both of these oriels have a single window placed on each of their three sides and these windows are all of equal size and are also identical in size and design to the single window that is placed between the bays. Separating these windows from one another are small Ionic pilasters that stand on plinth blocks and which appear to support a decorated fascia band above them. Crowning the entire facade is an overhanging cornice that has a triangular-shaped pediment centered on it that would typically have once borne the building's date of construction or the name of the owner. The use of oriel windows in the upper stories of commercial buildings such as this one is typical feature of Queen Anne style commercial buildings and there are two other surviving examples in the district: the Edward H. Hyde Building at 143 S. Jefferson St., built in 1894-1895, and the Lathrop-Bennett double block located at 139 West Maple Street and built in 1900-1901. Historic photos show that the Jeide-Carthew double block at 138 S. Madison St., built in 1895-1896, was originally an excellent example as well, but this building has now been greatly altered and no longer retains its historic appearance.