During the early 1900s, few Jacksonville architecture firms were in higher demand than Marsh & Saxelbye.
The creative team of William M. Marsh, a Jax native, and Harold F. Saxelbye, a native of England who also worked in New York, designed a massive collection of buildings throughout Jacksonville over a span of more than twenty years. In some sense, they inherited the throne of great local architecture from Henry J. Klutho.
Their work was featured in both the urban core and the city’s suburbs, which at the time were mostly separate municipalities. They were critical in defining the residential styles of Riverside, Avondale, San Jose, and more. Many of their buildings still stand today, though some have evolved past their original purpose. Over three dozen Marsh & Saxelbye designs are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
There’s a good chance you’ve admired a Marsh & Saxelbye-designed building before without even realizing it. To highlight and honor their work, we’ve compiled a small collection of the best buildings designed by the firm – all of one of which are still standing.
Hotelier Robert Kloeppel hired Marsh & Saxelbye to design his new 15-story Hotel George Washington.
The $1.5 million luxury hotel opened in 1926 at the corner of Adams and Julia streets in downtown Jax. In addition to over 300 guest rooms with working radios, the hotel featured an upscale steakhouse and cocktail lounge, a dance hall, and multiple ground-floor retail units.
The building’s design employed elements of Renaissance Revival style and housed one of the city’s first neon-lit signs atop its roof.
For many years, the George Washington was a lively center of downtown cultural activity. 1940s-era renovations added an auditorium, prompting the hotel to become something of a de-facto performing arts center prior to the construction of the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts.
Unfortunately, the hotel entered a period of decline in the 1960s and would soon shut down entirely. The building was demolished in 1973; the property on which it stood is currently vacant, with a new JEA headquarters building proposed for the site.
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