Historic Architecture 101: Walking the Town of Philipsburg with an Eye on Design (and a Beer in Hand)

One need not be a history buff or student of architecture to appreciate the distinct character of the buildings lining Philipsburg, Montana’s business district and surrounding neighborhoods. If you’re lucky enough to have visited our town, one building in particular has surely caught your eye: the colorful, ornate, and towering Sayrs building at the corner of Broadway and Sansome. Yes, the one with BREWERY inscribed in big gold letters on it’s big glass windows. Call us biased, but we have to say our Sayrs home is Broadway’s architectural champion.

Constructed by banker Joseph Hyde and his wife, Mary, in 1888, the Sayrs building was originally known as Hyde Block. It housed First National Bank until the silver crash in 1893, then reopened in 1894. The bank inspired the name of our taproom, as the original vault remains, just to the left of the bar. The Sayrs name graced the building in 1904 when Frank Sayrs bought it, and since then it’s housed a variety of businesses––including a tailor’s shop, drug stores, clothing store, liquor store, and recreation center––until 2012, when a gang of craft beer obsessives moved in with tanks, kegs, and a dog named Bruce.

Of course, our building is just one of the architecturally interesting structures in town, many of which are on the National Register of Historic Places. Philipsburg grew rapidly from the start, but it was two decades after settlement began that the most significant buildings were constructed––during the silver mining boom between 1881 and 1893, and again, to a lesser extent, during the early 1900s. Most construction even utilized locally sourced materials, including granite, brick, and wood, long before it was a box to check on your LEED application. Philipsburg is now considered one of Montana’s best-preserved late-nineteenth-century mining towns.

We’re so proud of our history that we’re just going to say it: you should make the trip to Philipsburg while the weather’s still gorgeous for an afternoon stroll around town––with an eye on design and a beer in hand. Yep, it’s legal to drink in the streets (one more reason to love Philipsburg!), so the Sayrs building is an obvious first stop. Read on for a quick lesson in architectural vocab to impress your friends when you make that trip, and grab a free Philipsburg Territory at any local business for a historic district map and guide (pages 16-24).

​Spot these architectural elements on Philipsburg's historic buildings:

Chamfered Corners
A chamfer is a 45° bevel cut at the outside corner of a building element. The door to our taproom is on a chamfered corner facing the middle of the Broadway and Sansome intersection, and Masonic Hall across the street features the same design.

Photo: Martina Nolte

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Modillioned Cornices
A modillion is an ornate load-bearing bracket (corbel) that supports a building’s cornice (the projecting moldings that form the top band of a wall). These fancy cornices are a signature element in Philipsburg architecture, and usually colorfully painted. You’ll find them all over, including on our building, the J.K. Merrill building next door, the A.J. Gibson-designed Walker Commercial Company building, and the McDonald Opera House. (A word of caution: some say the opera house is haunted!)

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Dentils
Dentils are another type of bracket, but not ornate like modillions. They’re usually small, closely spaced repeating blocks that form a molding. Dentils can be purely decorative or corbelled (load-bearing). Philipsburg Grade School, the state's oldest still-operating school, is covered in dentils, as well as the Granite County Courthouse and Bowen houses.

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Gingerbread Trim
A staple of the Queen Anne style of Victorian architecture, gingerbread trim is characterized by ornate, decorative, usually scroll-cut wood details, including gable trim, pierced frieze board, braced arches, and cornice or eave brackets. This Philipsburg residence has scroll-cut decorative eave brackets. You’ll  also find multiple braced arches on the 1907 Featherman House.

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Turned Posts, Balusters, and Spindles
These posts that support Queen Anne and Folk Victorian porch roofs and railings are turned on a lathe to achieve a rounded surface and almost always filled with multiple balls and curves. A spindle is a smaller, decorative type of baluster. This private residence has beautiful turned posts and beaded spindles.

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Mansard Roofs
Originating in Paris and associated with the Second Empire architectural style in the US, the mansard roof has a pitch divided into a shallow slope above a steeper slope with dormers. The shallow slope isn’t always visible from street level, as is the case in this view of the Stephens Hotel in Philipsburg, which has a metal mansard roof and gabled dormers. This style of roof can also be seen at the rear of a Bowen house with fishscale-style shingles.

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Hip Roofs
A hip roof slopes inward from all four of the exterior walls and is fairly common across Philipsburg. The Hauck House has a hip roof and the Metcalf House has a hipped porch roof.

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Gable Roofs
Especially common on residential buildings, a gable roof forms a triangular element framed by the sloping sides of a pitched roof (shaped like an inverted V). See a gable roof on St. Philip’s Catholic Church, and multiple on the Featherman House (these intersecting gables are called cross gables). 

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Dutch Gable Roofs
​The Granite County Jail, designed in a Queen Anne Victorian style (and Montana's oldest still-operating jail), has a Dutch gable roof, a hybrid of hip and gable roofs. Note the sunburst motif on the gable, which was a popular Victorian design present on multiple Philipsburg buildings.

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False Fronts
A standard in Old West commercial architecture, false fronted buildings were designed with a literal façade, hiding the (usually gabled) roof behind it and creating the impression of a larger, more impressive building. The Hynes boarding house, built in 1880, is a classic example.

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Rusticated Stone
To achieve a rusticated look, each stone in a wall or other architectural element has only its edges cut back so as to emphasize its rough shape and mass and provide a visual contrast to smooth architectural surfaces. The Philipsburg Grade School (now a high school) incorporated rusticated stone, and the original Granite County High School has a rusticated stone base.

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Lancet Windows
Lancet windows are tall and slender with a sharply pointed arch, like a lance. This design was very popular in early Gothic architecture, particularly on churches. Philipsburg’s first church, St. Andrew’s, has a lancet window at the entrance.

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Ocular Windows
​Ocular windows are simple circular windows without tracery, which is sometimes used to create a wheel or rose design. The Grade School tower has a large ocular window on each of its four sides.

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Dormers
A dormer is a small structure with window that projects from a sloped roof. You’ll see a hipped dormer on the Hauck House and gabled dormers on the Bowen houses and Stephens Hotel.

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Hooded Architraves
An architrave is a horizontal block that rests on top of columns or other vertical elements like doors or windows. A hooded architrave projects from the wall to divert rainwater. The Morse Hall second floor windows and panel door have richly ornamented hooded architraves.

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 Turrets
A turret is a small tower at the corner of a building. This stunning private residence features a finial-topped pyramidal roofed turret, and the M.E. Doe House has a prominent conical turret. The jail even has four small square turrets projecting from the corners of its tower.

Photo: Jon Roanhaus

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Drums
A drum is the cylindrical or polygonal wall supporting a dome. First Presbyterian Church has a unique hexagonal open drum with a copper dome. Granite County Courthouse has a fenestrated drum, meaning a drum with windows or window-like structures. The courthouse also has a lantern, the architectural term for the cylindrical or polygonal structure that crowns a dome, usually with an open base to allow light to enter the area below.

Photo: BK-Hunters, Waymarking

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Giant Order Doric Columns
​The Doric order is a style of Classical Architecture featuring simple, tapered columns (think of the Parthenon). Giant order columns rise two or more stories. The courthouse, designed by prominent Montana architects Link and Haire, has a giant order Doric entry block with smooth-surfaced granite columns. 

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Pediments
A pediment is a wide, low-pitched gable at the top of the façade of a building or over a door or window. Philipsburg Grade School’s triangular pediments are an excellent example of this Classical Revival design. The jail also has a triangular pediment above an entry portico.

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Parapet Walls
A parapet wall is a vertical extension of the wall at the edge of a roof (or terrace, etc.), designed for safety or simply aesthetics. The Bowen house has parapeted gable ends topped with stone coping, which serves to cap the wall, often curved or sloping to help divert water from the building.

Think you’ve got it down? Head into town to test your knowledge or just stare at all the pretty. We’ll be waiting with your pint in the Sayrs building, every day from 10:00 to 8:00. 

And one last thing! The stories of the people and businesses that occupied these architectural gems are seriously fascinating but far too numerous to include here. So if you’re itching for more, we highly recommend stopping by our local library, which has a section dedicated to books on Philipsburg history and cheerful librarians to help you browse. As our pal Arthur says, “Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card!” ​