Klaus Block

Standing at the corner of North Main and Wayne Streets in Lima, the Klaus Block is a three-story brick commercial building dating from about 1870. Its Victorian Gothic design includes brick corbelling, stone trim, double windows separated by brick pilasters, a stone hood molding, tall narrow round-arched windows with carved trefoil details, and a projecting metal cornice with heavy double brackets. The first-floor facade has been remodeled, though the interior retains a tin ceiling, cast iron palmetto posts and old oak pharmaceutical cabinets. Philip Klaus, apparently the builder, ran a meat market here in 1876, and a pharmacy is reported to have occupied the southeast corner continuously, with a druggist recorded there in 1880. Later tenants included a candy manufacturer in 1903. The top floor was once a high-ceilinged ballroom and later a notorious 1930s speakeasy. The building is considered an important structure in north downtown Lima and an excellent example of High Victorian Gothic commercial architecture, near other buildings from the 1880s and 1890s.