The Galveston City Council recently approved an ordinance granting the building located at 2125 Church Street landmark status. The building pre-dates the 1900 Storm and is approximately 129 years old.  It has served generations of Galvestonians as a downtown business establishment. While no architect has been identified, the building is a good example of commercial architecture from the late 1800s.

For one hundred years, the building was an active furniture store. Following the 1900 Storm, the heavily damaged building was sold to E. Dulitz, who was able to make repairs and move his furniture business into the location in November of 1901. After Mr. Dulitz died, the building became Nelson Furniture.  In the late 1950s, the store was purchased by the Plantowsky family who “modernized” the building with a new façade. The Plantowsky Furniture store occupied the building until 1980.

The building was constructed perhaps as early as 1880 and was originally owned by Robert H. Davis. Uncovered in the recent renovation, the building’s large arched windows on the second and third floors are a very distinctive feature. Several murals also decorate the façade, one of which, an advertisement for E. Dulitz Furniture, can be found on the western side of the structure. A Coca Cola mural that also decorates the building was restored in the 1990s.

The building has been an established feature of the neighborhood, community, and city since its construction in the 1880s.

In 1999, the Galveston City Council adopted Ordinance No. 99-14 creating the Landmark Designation process. In accordance with the ordinance, a property’s request for this designation is also considered a proposal for a “change of zoning”, and therefore is treated as such. Change of zoning requests are reviewed by Planning Commission and the final decision is made by City Council.

As per the Landmark Ordinance, the following criteria were taken into consideration during the review process:

• A structure, object, site or building being considered for designation as a historic landmark must be at least 50 years old.

• The character, interest, or value of the structure as part of the development, heritage, or cultural characteristics of the City of Galveston, Galveston County, the State of Texas, or the United States.

• Recognition of the structure as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, National Historic Landmark, or entered into the National Register of Historic Places.

• Association, of the structure, with events that have made significant contribution to the broad patterns of local, regional, state or national history.

• Association, of the structure, with the lives of people significant in the city, region, state or national past.

• Distinctive characteristics, of the structure, of a period or method of construction, architecture; representative of the work of a master designer, builder or craftsmen.

• The structure’s representation of an established and familiar visual feature of a neighborhood, community or city.