26 West King Street Lancaster, PA
This landmark building is one of Lancaster’s finest examples of a Victorian Queen-Anne style commercial building. It was built as Steinman Hardware Store in 1886 by businessman / historian George Steinman and his brother-in-law George M. Franklin.
The architect was Robert Gray Kennedy of Philadelphia. The building was constructed on the site of an earlier Steinman hardware store. An 1887 New Era newspaper exclaimed this was the “largest and handsomest private structure in this city.”
A stained-glass window over the entry states that this store was founded in 1744 and is the oldest hardware store in the U. S. The hardware business was founded by the Steinman’s Moravian ancestors who immigrated here from Germany.
The building was remodeled in 1926 with a marble storefront. Also added then was a stained-glass Conestoga wagon from the glass studio of J. Horace Rudy of York. The building has an arcaded stone-and-brick balustrade, brick pilasters, ball finials, and terra-cotta tiles. Today it is home to the Pressroom Restaurant.