NOTICE     The following is an article found by Ms. Babette Greenwood in the Macungie Web Site.



AUTHOR
William Mickley Weaver
1889
As the tanning business declined during the late nineteenth century, other uses were sought for the property. Early in 1889, Joel Kelchner of Fleetwood began negotiations with James Singmaster to build a new creamery next to his tannery, utilizing the tannery’s steam power to run the centrifugal creamery machines. The creamery opened for business in early January 1890, and continued to serve the Macungie community under various ownerships until finally closing around 1918. During the twentieth century, this property was the site of automobile garages owned and operated by William Acker, and later by Norman Butz; old-timers remembered undertaker Levi Funk housing his horse- drawn hearse in one of the old tannery outbuildings. In February of 1959, while excavating for the foundation of a new Macungie Post Office building, irregular stone walls were uncovered that were once part of the huge curing vats that occupied the site. Today, the property is split into several smaller parcels, including the Bear Swamp Diner and Master Supply Line.
Singmaster Hall
174 East Main Street
(1889)


PHOTOGRAPHS
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Before the Re-Build
Bulding in use

  This extremely interesting three-story brick building was erected by James Singmaster during the summer and fall of 1889. As O. P. Knauss writes in the December 26, 1889, issue of the Macungie Progress:
It is the most imposing business structure in town and an ornament that our citizens can be proud of.
The first floor is divided into two splendid rooms, both with entire open fronts and ample side light from numerous windows. The ceilings and wainscoting are of the finest pine and the woodwork is neat and appropriate. On the second floor are also two rooms suitable for stock-room or manufacturing purposes. In the eastern a brick hearth has been erected for the use of tailors. The third floor is a hall for public assemblies or society purposes, two ante-rooms being at the back part. … A French roof crowns the building, surmounted at the front by a turret sixteen feet high. Windows on the three sides of this turret furnish a splendid view over the surrounding country. The top is ornamented with an iron railing and point.
   The firm of R. J. Ritter, Kutztown, was the first business venture to lease space in the new building, occupying both the eastern first and second floors for their Furniture and House furnishing Goods business.
The third floor hall hosted social events, including church dinners, dances, motion picture viewings, lodge meetings, and musical performances.
   The building remained in Singmaster/Weaver family ownership for two more generations, until Edna Weaver Linton, granddaughter of James Singmaster, sold the property on February 1, 1947, to Clarence M. J. Butz, Eva V. Butz, and Norman M. Butz, who operated it as the Butz Garage. After the death of Clarence and Eva Butz, the property was sold by Norman M. Butz to his brotherin- law and sister, Francis and Evelyn Jacob, in 1959. Over the past 120 years, this building has also been the site of J. F. Wieder paper box manufacturing, the Horwith Knitting Mill, Main Street Floral, and IMPCO, to name a few.
   Today, the first floor of the building is the home of Salvatore’s Pizzeria, with the Larry Jacob Auto Repair shop occupying the rear frame section. The second and third floors are now divided into apartments.
   Architectural Comments
   Except for Solomon’s Church, Singmaster Hall is the most dominant building, by size, on this Singmaster tour. It might be considered the last great bastion of a quasi-public building within the borough that signifies the great changes that occurred from the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the area was still almost exclusively a back-roads farming community, to the ushering in of modernism at the start of the twentieth century. Today, it provides a place of
   Walter Greisamer, East Greenville, circa 1918 wonder about what people experienced more than 125 years ago.
   Its dimensions are 50½ feet on the Main Street side, by 60 feet deep along Poplar Street. Few other buildings in the borough compare to it in square footage, and despite extensive alterations on its front wall, the building is unmistakably of Second Empire style. These buildings were erected in the 1855 to 1885 era; just one other building in the borough is of this architectural style.
   The dead giveaway for the Second Empire style designation is the mansard, or dual-pitched, roof. It is named for the seventeenth century French architect François Mansarde (1598–1666). A feature most often associated with this architectural type is the decorative brackets, or Italianates, beneath the eaves. Nine such wood elements are seen across the top of the second floor of the front wall. They are also found elsewhere on the building.
   The structure is two stories in height, plus the third-floor level that includes the distinctive and defining roof area. The entire façade has experienced a face lift in the last several decades, where a modern brick-coat was affixed to the exterior wall surface. The first floor on the front has also been greatly altered as accommodations for new businesses.
   Three sections define the second floor on the front wall. Each side section has three windows with arched bricked tops, and the middle section has two narrow windows with the same arched tops. On the mansard roof, two 2-over-2 windows appear at each side, with V-sloped wood trim at their tops. At the middle are two windows with arched, bricked tops.
   Rising high above the third floor level is a prominent, almost overpowering, middle-section tower. It has a looming presence, and some onlookers may sense almost spooky-like feelings that emanate from its position of dominance, even stark aloneness. Its roof is covered with the slate that was the original covering.
   Windows are on three sides but not the rear of the tower.
   The northwest side of the building remains the best-preserved exterior wall. This full wall has its original exposed bricks. Every eighth course or so is composed of “headers.” All the rest are “stretchers.” An exposed stone foundation wall can also be seen. Six Italianate brackets are at the top of the second floor. Six 2-over-2 windows occupy this floor level, and each window has triple-level arched brick lintels. The mansard roof has five 2-over-2 windows, and the roof is covered with slate. The three windows on the first-floor level also have the triple layer of bricks in arched form. Interestingly, the middle layer is in a saw-tooth form that is at distinct odds with the flat, recessed middle layer of bricks on the second-floor level windows.
   The entire southeast wall was finished with modern brick- coat identical to the brick on the front wall. A legitimate question is — why the difference? The southeast wall is far more visible than the opposite wall. When the building was modernized, the building owner, probably because of cost constraints, limited his updating of the building to the two most easily seen walls — the front and the southeast. Three windows are seen on the first floor, while five windows and one door are seen on the second floor. Six Italianate brackets adorn the eaves at the top of the second floor. On the mansard roof, five 2-over-2 windows are seen, identical to the roof on the northwest wall. On the first floor a large modern door opening is located near the rear corner.
   Like the northwest wall, original brick is exposed on the rear wall, not often seen by passersby. No brackets appear on this wall. At the mansard roof level are four 2-over-2 windows. Wide boards appear as fascia at the top of the second floor, and are also seen on the three other walls. A one-story frame wing, likely non-original, covers a great deal of the rear wall.
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