Photos of Stieff factories stores & warerooms
Over the years, The Stieff Company occupied many spaces. Most owned by the Stieff family
Interior of 17 N. Liberty Street in Baltimore
Site of the first Stieff Ware Rooms.
The light fixtures are gas. Period of dress looks turn of the 20th Century.
I wish I could read the calendar on the wall.
The Stieff factory was several blocks away on Cider Street (later called Cider Alley
A close examination of the photo shows the case on the left to be a pieces of crystal, a large
punch bowl of either glass or crystal and various silver pieces. Case on right has serving pieces.
The Stieff Company would maintain a store at this location until 1952.
Courtesy of Charles C. Stieff III
Below, Early employees of The Stieff Company (BSSCo)
From the showcase museum at The Stieff Building, 800 Wyman Park
left to Right are:
G. Harry Gebb 1899, M. K. Steinacker 1892, Joseph A. Matthews 1900
Below 17 N. Liberty Street, Baltimore
The entrance to the Stieff Store at 17 N. Liberty was the door just to the right of center. The shop covered the entire first floor. The left hand door went to the offices on the upper floors. A second set of stairs to the second floor was inside the building. On the second floor you would find Beulah. There she packed and wrapped silver that was being bought on the first floor. A dumbwaiter took the silver up to the second floor for Beulah to wrap and then send back downstairs. In the section of this site called STIEFF FAMILY PHOTOS, there is picture of Beulah’s 50th anniversary party. The Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 did not burn this building... having stopped at the exterior wall of the building next door, which was The Stieff Piano Company, owned by relatives of Charles C. Stieff. In the photo below you can see the street scape of N. Liberty some years later.
A 1932 photo of N. Liberty Street.
The building just right of center with the double arches is 17 N. Liberty Street, The Stieff Company.
It was also the site of The Baltimore Sterling Silver Company, and prior to that
Charles C. Stieff had his offices there for his prior cutlery business.
40 years in this location and 20 more to go. The factory had been in Hamden since 1925.
The Baltimore Sterling Silver Manufacturing Co.
THE CIDER ALLEY YEARS
(photo from the Stieff family)
As seen above, The Stieff Company was once
The Sterling Silver Manufacturing Co. (1893-1895)
The name was later changed to The Baltimore Sterling Silver Co.(1895-1904)
Shown here, Employees and Silversmiths at the Cider Street factory.
The showroom and offices were located a couple blocks away at 17 N. Liberty Street.
These were very old buildings at the time. The great fire had destroyed much of the cities downtown.
Cider Street/Alley was the backdoor for buildings facing Lombard or Baltimore Streets.
Only a few businesses “front doors” actually faced the Alley and BSSMCo. factory was one of them.
The front row has three really young looking guys. Apprentices?
Manufacturing at the turn of the last century was not pretty. It was a dirty, grimy job even when making something as beautiful as silver.
Personal conjecture here. Note the large, bold use of CAPITOLS in the word manufacturing. Charles C. Stieff had been a “jobber” aka middleman in the silver and cutlery business. I think he has the MANUFACTURING stressed in the sign to show that they were producing goods, not just reselling wares from another producer.
(from the 1913 Stieff booklet, The Art of Silversmithing)
In 1912 Stieff contracted to build a new workshop/factory and in 1913 made the move to this new building. leaving the cramped rooms on Cider Alley behind.
The retail store remained at 17 Liberty St *
Eventually Stieff would also purchase 313 West German.
During WWI, and an anti German climate, German Street would be renamed Redwood
The booklet shows more photos of this building. Click to view.
1913 The Art of Silversmithing
*At the time Liberty had been renamed as McLane, but by 1914 would reclaim the name Liberty.
Amazingly, The Stieff family still has the invoice for the building of
the new structure at 311 West. German Street. Click on the document
below to see the original invoice.
In 1923 business had grown and grown and Stieff needed a new factory. Ground was broken May 8, 1924 on land purchased in Hamden and soon a new, modern one story factory was rising.
Below is a photo of the ground breaking. The little guy in the middle is
Charles C. Stieff II, Son of Gideon the company President and grandson
of Charles C. Stieff, Founder of The Stieff Company.
Charles II is holding a sterling silver shovel. Years later, this shovel and
other personal items of the Stieff family were stolen from the small museum
in the Stieff Building at 800 Wyman Park Drive.
Silversmiths working on Coffee Pots and Candlesticks at the Wyman Park Driveway Factory
Photo, The Baltimore Museum of Industry
Below at the Stieff Factory post 1925
Silversmith Jeffrey Herman tells me that this man is “sand bobbing” with a walrus hide wheel.
According to Jeffrey, This was a quicker (and dirtier) way to remove file and other abrasive marks
(Photo A. Aubrey Bodine, Copyright Jennifer B. Bodine)
The Stieff Building at Night, 2008
(Photographer Unknown)
800 Wyman Park Driveway
The Stieff Building was designed by Architect Theodore Wells Pietsch
Completed in 1925 as a single story building, it was expanded in 1929 and again in 1971.
Today it is a mixed use office building and the Stieff Silver sign still burns bright in the night sky.
I have one of the red light bulbs used for the Christmas season to light the sign.
The new Stieff building in Hamden. Completed in 1925, it was designed to allow for a second story later on.
From the collection of the Maryland Historical Society
A lesson was learned in the above and below photos. When photos are being taken... align all of the window shades so that it gives a uniform look. Later photos were made this way. These photos look like Signal Corp. training.
Above, 1925 Post Card of the new Stieff Silver Building. Assuming fall from the lack of leaves. An early spring photo would have had construction going on... as the building opened in April 1925.
Business was good for Stieff in the 1920s, so go that plans were soon drawn to double the size of the building.
The addition would be completed in 1929... just in time for the stock market crash and depression.
Above and below appear to be the same photograph. The example below made into a postcard.
In both photos, note that the upper half is lighter than the bottom. This is the new brick
having not aged as long as the five year old building on the bottom half. The Clock from
the 1925 building was reused, but the signs were greatly increased in size, requiring new
framing and letters.
A 1930’s postcard of The Stieff Building
This post card is from an original etching by well known Baltimore artist Don Swann.
The card seems to have a rather romantic feel to it..
Donovan Swann (1889-1954)
Card from my personal collection
January 30th, 1930
The banner sign reads “Salesrooms Here and 17 N. Liberty St.”
Eight years later on January 18, 1938
The young trees shown above seem to be missing now.
This undated photo of a holiday event at the Stieff Factory.
Period dress appears to be 1940s. The abundance of fur coats makes us
think that this was a swanky affair.
Look close and you can see the little Santa head and wreaths for the holiday.
Photographer unknown, courtesy of Charles C. Stieff III
The factory store at Stieff.
On the pedestal out front, a bust of Charles C. Stieff, Founder
Undated photo, photographer unknown
Courtesy of Charles C. Stieff II
A Stieff family photo, 1980
Charles C. Stieff III, I & II
In front of the factory store entrance
An early photo of the Howard Street Store. Stieff President, Gideon Stieff loved bronze statues according to his son Rodney... in particular those of ladies. On the ends of the showcases are examples of Gideon’s bronze statues
Courtesy of Rodney and Dottie Stieff
From an undated Stieff family slide
Below, the exterior of the 229 N. Howard store in Oct. 2009
Times have changed
In the 1970’s Stieff had a series of l photos taken of workers at the factory, retail stores and Stieff products for a catalog. Click on the photo below to see those photos.
In October 2009 I visited the old Stieff factory with Charles Stieff III. I had picked a bad day as it was Columbus Day and most of the businesses in the building were closed, so access to large parts of the property was limited. Charlie found someone to let us in and roam around in the public spaces. Because of the limited access I was not able to get close photos of some items or glare affected others. During this visit I was able to “obtain” one of the red light bulbs used during the holiday season in the famous STIEFF SILVER sign on top of the building.
When the Stieff building was being abandoned by Lenox, some employees buried some of the silver in the floor. This treasure was unearthed later during reconstruction.
In this photo I see a blend of Stieff and Kirk patterns along with a piece from
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Photographed in two sections due to being in a locked case.
The middle doors with the six panes of glass above them is the old Stieff employee entrance. The Scout Shop next door is a new door cut in during renovation.
This is the back side of the building. The brick used on this side of the building is not as finished quality as that on the front of the building.
Charles C. Stieff III at the rear of the building. The darker brick at the right is the 1970 addition made for expanding pewter operations. Now that building is a branch of Johns Hopkins University.
View from the second floor looking out the front of the building.
The basement vault where at the end of the day, any silver would be locked up until the next morning. Now a storage closet for The Parks People organization. A second vault was on the first floor and still exists today.
Undated slide of the Stieff Bldg from the Stieff family. Note the awnings and the mature trees and bushes. Very similar to the post card earlier with awnings and large trees.
Stieff, twilight 2007. The 1970 addition shown at left
(photographers unknown above and below)
Photo below from Google earth
This photo shows the size of the 1970 addition.
“The Factory”
Artist, Greg Otto
Acrylic on Board
Original owned by Ann and Charlie Stieff
December 12, 2016
THE STIEFF BUILDING
RED AND GREEN HOLIDAY LIGHTS
Photo by Tom Cook
For decades the Stieff’s changed the lighting of the sign to red and green for the holidays. The current owners of the building continue the tradition.
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In 1928 Stieff opened a retail store at 213-215 N. 6th Street in Richmond Virginia. The store only lasted a few years. Charles Stieff II & Rodney Stieff recall visiting the store with their father as small children. By 1937 the store was gone. Stieff was now selling its silver through Thalhimer’s Dept Stores a block away.
Location of the old Stieff store in Richmond, September 2010
Directly across the street is the old Miller & Rhoads building.
The store would have been in two of the center shops. These shops would have
been fairly small.. as the back wall is the outside wall of the Lowe’s Theater.
(The LOWE’S Theater opened in 1928, and is now The Carpenter Center)
I estimate them to be about 20 feet deep and about 15 feet wide. The Stieff store was located
at 213 & 215. Exactly which of these shops that would have been is lost with history. The shops are now all unnumbered and part of the Carpenter Center box office.
The photo below of the Lowe’s Theater in 1937. The Stieff store would have been gone by this period.. but you can still see where there store would have been in relation to the theater.
Sign announcing the new Stieff Building in Hamden
Rodney and Dottie Stieff Collection
After WWII, the Liberty Street store was getting a little “tired” and out of date. A new downtown store at 516 E. Belvedere was opened.
516 East Belvedere Grand Opening.
Note the signage is similar to that on the Stieff building.
Belvedere photos courtesy of Rodney and Dottie Stieff
A table display at the grand opening. The dinner plates are sterling silver of course. A portrait of the company founder Charles C. Stieff looks down from above.
