111 E. Fourth Street [RTHL/NR], Land Title Block, 1889; 1983. The Land Title Block is perhaps the finest Victorian commercial building remaining in Fort Worth. An eclectic building with touches of the Romanesque Revival, it displays a rich use of materials including fine pressed red brick walls, red sandstone trim, and original stained glass windows. Decoration is equally rich, as in the carved sandstone panel depicting an owl and a mockingbird with outstretched wings in a tree. Architectural historian Blake Alexander notes that the building is very important architecturally because it is done “in the Romanesque style – a style seldom seen outside of the eastern part of the country.” The building is one of the oldest surviving works of Fort Worth architect Marshall R. Sanguinet (see CBD 84, which has been reconstructed) and was designed by his firm, Haggart and Sanguinet. Its first tenants were the Land Mortgage Bank of Texas, which gave the building its name; the Chamberlin Investment Co., developers of Arlington Heights; and the law firm of Ross, Head and Ross, whose initials appear in a panel above the second story of the front of the building. Through the years the building housed the bank, real estate and title companies, and – in later years – the Whiteway Cafe and Daddio’s, a jazz club. The building has been altered through the years. The multi-colored glazed brick on the ground floor of the building is original to the structure. A 1983 renovation replaced the original stained glass windows (which had been removed and stored) and remodeled the building’s interior. The Land Title Block was designated as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1981 and is potentially eligible for the National Register.
