Ohio jewel box bank 2

Yesterday I visited the Home Building Association Bank in Newark, Ohio, a Louis Sullivan jewel box bank built in 1914. It’s currently owned by the Licking County Foundation (oh, grow up), which restored it at considerable cost over several years and reopened it to the public last fall. As you can see from the photo above, the Old Home differs from the other jewel box banks in that its exterior is clad entirely in terra cotta—it’s not mostly brick with terra cotta accents. But the accents still manage to stand out. Let’s not forget the lions, which we’ve seen before. Like the Sidney and Grinnell banks, this one has a protective lion with wings and a shield. And like the Sidney bank, it has a couple of lion heads with pipes in their mouths to drain rainwater. The pipes could be a little more subtle. This is a pretty small building, so when you walk in the door on the east side, you’re put in a fairly narrow space. Not as narrow as it used to be for visitors to the bank. Near the…