Bank of California Building (Portland)
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Bank of California Building
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Portland Historic Landmark
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Viewed from the southwest in 2013
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| Location | 330 SW 6th Avenue Portland, Oregon, U.S. |
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| Coordinates | 45°31′16″N 122°40′38″W / 45.521203°N 122.677160°WCoordinates: 45°31′16″N 122°40′38″W / 45.521203°N 122.677160°W |
| Area | 0.1 acres (0.040 ha) |
| Built | 1924–25 |
| Architect | A. E. Doyle |
| Architectural style | Italianate |
| NRHP reference # | 78002306 |
| Added to NRHP | March 14, 1978 |
The Bank of California Building, also known as the Durham & Bates Building and currently the Three Kings Building, is a historic former bank building in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Since 1978, it has been on the National Register of Historic Places. The three-story building was designed by A. E. Doyle in an Italianate style and completed in 1925. The ground floor features a two-story-high grand room with 36-foot (11 m) ceilings. The building's original owner and occupant, the Bank of California, moved out around the end of 1969 and sold the building in 1970. The building has had a succession of other owners and tenants since that time. It was last used as a bank in 1977.
The London and San Francisco Bank established a Portland branch in 1882, and when the San Francisco-based Bank of California acquired and absorbed that institution, in 1905, the branch became the first Bank of California branch in Portland. In 1924, officers of the bank approved plans to construct a new building for the Portland branch, which since about 1894 had been located at Third and Stark streets in downtown, in the Chamber of Commerce Building (demolished in 1934). Noted Portland architect A. E. Doyle was hired to design the new structure. Doyle's chief designer Charles K. Greene had traveled abroad to study Greco-Roman architectural forms in the 1910s.
His research resulted in three Italianate buildings in Portland, of which the Bank of California Building was the first. The others were the Chicago/Italianate Pacific Building and the Public Service Building, an early skyscraper. While the Pacific and Public Service Buildings are large, multi-story structures, the three-story Bank of California Building is small. It has been described as being in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo (palace). Construction began in 1924 and the building was completed in 1925, opening on July 20 of that year.
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