Halle Brothers Co.
The Halle Building is one of Cleveland’s oldest landmark buildings. Originally built in 1910 as the Halle Brothers upscale department store, the building is now reconfigured into 392,000 square feet of office space
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| Department store | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Fate | Closed |
| Founded | 1891 |
| Defunct | 1982 |
| Headquarters | Cleveland, Ohio |
| Products | Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, and housewares. |
| Website | None |
Halle Brothers Co. of Cleveland, Ohio, commonly referred to as Halle's, is a defunct department store chain. During most of its 91-year history Halle's focused on higher-end merchandise which it combined with personal service. The company was the first major department store in Cleveland to open a suburban branch store.
After growing and moving several times, the company eventually built its main store at 1228 Euclid Avenue by 1910. Standing at 195 feet, it was the tallest department store ever constructed in the city. It was designed by New York architect Edward Bacon and was called elegant yet refined in its detailing of its white terra cotta facade. The Halle Building is the third tallest building in the Cleveland Theater District after the 1921-built 272 foot Keith Building and the 1991-built 210 foot Renaissance Centre.
When the flagship store expanded in 1927, TIME praised the business for helping to turn the city of Cleveland into a more metropolitan city and compared Halle's to Lord & Taylor, B. Altman & Co., R.H. Stearns, Marshall Field & Co., Bullock's, and Maison Blanche. Although the company sustained losses during the Great Depression, business grew again after World War II as Halle's began developing suburban branches starting in 1948 under the leadership of Walter Murphy Halle, while completing a $10 million modernization at Playhouse Square that included a new service building on Prospect Avenue and the West Wing addition to its original building in 1949. Over time, the store came to be enjoyed by the city's carriage trade society, especially during the Christmas season when the flagship store had its very own popular version of Santa Claus, a man named Mr. Jingeling, who could be found, as a TV and radio jingle reminded kids, "on Halle's seventh floor" serving as Santa's "Keeper Of The Keys."
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