developer and
resident Charlie Hewitt
in his first-floor unit,
which he uses as an art
studio. Architect James
A. Sterling (below) in
his office, which is just
around the corner from
the Congress Street
building. Upper-level
units offer easy access
to the interior courtyard
(facing page), a
favorite spot for
neighborly cocktail
parties.
1st
floor
brown street
congress street
3rd
floor
cost a lot yet can’t be seen. “And the place was just a
mess,” recalls Sterling. “Nothing was square, party walls
were collapsing, and one of our lot lines ended up 2
feet inside an adjacent building.”
Undaunted, the group pressed on, through planning meetings, redesigns, a nine-month permitting
process (“Who knew Portland was in a seismic area?”
Hewitt says with a wry smile), and the rigors of construction. Working with Portland’s Wright-Ryan Construction, they dealt with a high water table, a beloved
basement rock club that had to be moved out, and
worried neighbors who wanted to know, among other
things, how long this project was going to take. Hewitt
moved his family up from Jersey City and spent most of
his days in the construction trailer, fielding questions
and monitoring progress.
The result is a structure that straddles old and new,
with a facade that echoes the solid-and-void patterns of
its historic brick-and-stone neighbors yet expresses itself
in glass, steel, and lead-coated copper. “It’s an un-Port-land kind of building,” says Sterling, “but it fits.”
In the first-floor retail space is Addo Novo, a modern furnishings store, Whitney Art Works, an art gallery,
and the Museum of African Culture, which is devoted
to sub-Saharan tribal art. “We considered getting a restaurant in,” says Hewitt, “but when you think of the
brown street
AA
congress street
residential space
commercial space
courtyard
existing adjacent
building
