That includes installing new elevators, HVAC and infrastructure, preserving historic ironwork in windows and gates and creating a history wall highlighting the bank’s legacy.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
It also includes transforming a former retail area into a hub for Yellow Cardinal Advisory Group, a premier wealth management and advisory organization backed by First Financial.
The High Street building houses all bank services, with additional tenant spaces and a renovated community space on the second floor available for free rentals, primarily for nonprofits.
The updated area features a catering-ready kitchen and can be used as a free meeting space for local organizations and a venue for celebrations, including receptions, Berlon said.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
“We love nonprofits, but anyone in the community can rent this space for free to host events that support the community,” he said.
The bank also will make available space in the downtown building for area individuals who need it for their own use, Berlon said.
“If you’re a architect who lives in Hamilton (and) you need to meet a couple clients, you can use the conference room with all of our AV for free, because ... not everybody can work out of their house,” he said.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
While renovating the nearly 100-year-old building, workers uncovered a piece of history that had been hidden for decades behind the structure’s drywall: ornate, historic French wallpaper designed in the 1800s.
The wallpaper, which world-renowned as fine art, features the work Les Vues d’Amérique du Nord (“Views of North America”).
It shows an idealized European vision of North America, with scenes progressing from New York Bay, West Point and Boston Harbor to Natural Bridge in Virginia and Niagara Falls. Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy famously installed the same wallpaper style in the White House in the early 1960s, adding to its cultural significance.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
“Each of these designs was not painted,” Berlon told this news outlet during a tour of the building. “It was all done by woodblock carved over 1,600 pieces of wood carved and then 223 different paint colors to get them to work, so every every step from the light green to the gray to the dark green is a different stamp and a different paint to build this mosaic that covers various important historic events from the United States.”
Berlon said the mural likely was covered during the bank’s last major renovation in the mid-1970s. Zuber & Cie, the company that created the wallpaper, is still in business “and confirmed all of our information,” he said.
“When we uncovered it, we had over 650 holes that we had a restoration company come in to repair so we can bring it back to its natural beauty,” he said. “We’re very excited that it survived as well as it did, and we think it’s going to be really great for the community to see.”
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
He said First Financial plans to unveil the historic Hamilton headquarters’ renovations in late March.
As part of its revitalization effort, the company relocated the bank’s inward‑facing trust operations from a second‑floor space above its drive‑thru banking in a nearby building to the seventh floor.
Berlon said First Financial in May will complete renovations to that second‑floor area and convert it into a call center, bringing more than 50 employees to Hamilton to staff it.
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
First Financial was founded as the First National Bank of Hamilton in 1863 with one of the first bank charters in the United States.
Berlon said First Financial President and CEO Archie Brown will maintain an office in the renovated Hamilton space.
“We have a very special place in our heart for Hamilton ... and so if we don’t invest, if we’re not leading the way, other people aren’t going to join in and do it either,” he said. “We think our civic responsibility is to make sure that we have a beacon of light here that brings not only our people, but brings other people to downtown Hamilton.”
Credit: Nick Graham
Credit: Nick Graham
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