Building Description Born Capital Brewery Bottling Works - Hercules Trouser Company, Columbus Ohio

The Born Capital Brewery Bottling Works is a three-story brick bearing-wall building with a flat roof. It was built in three parts: an original portion, a little over half a block in depth, dating from about 1895 and built in the Romanesque Revival style; an eastward expansion of this portion that extended almost to the rear of the block, dating from between 1900 and 1910; and a full-depth addition along the south wall dating from the late 1930s or early 1940s.

The original section of the building rests on a rock-faced cut-stone raised foundation and has a smooth stone water table. The walls are of brick laid in a common bond pattern. On the main west elevation, the building corners at the first floor are rusticated, while projecting octagonal brick turrets extend from the second floor to the parapet. Above the third floor is a projecting sheet metal cornice, surmounted by a brick frieze in the parapet that is composed of five recessed panels in each of the four bays of the facade. A sheet metal cornice cap and an elevated central parapet extension, also of sheet metal, complete the facade design. A faint paint shadow reading "Hercules," the name of a later occupant after the building ceased functioning for brewery purposes, is faintly visible in the panel of the extended parapet.

Main elevation window openings on the first floor are rectangular and had transoms, while the second and third floors have segmental-arched and round-arched openings, respectively. All windows are set in pairs, with brick piers separating the windows of each pair. The first floor west elevation windows have been replaced with glass blocks and the transoms have been infilled with brick, but wood 2/2 double-hung windows survive in the second and third floors. Arched transom windows above the third floor windows have been replaced by translucent panels. First floor windows have stone lintels and sills, while the second and third floors have stone sills and arched brick lintels.

On the north elevation, paired rectangular window openings remain on the first floor, with their wood windows and transoms intact. Second and third floor windows have rectangular and round-arched windows in the original portion of the building (the first three bays east of Front Street), with industrial steel sash in the rest of the windows on this floor. The sequence of construction here is not certain, but it appears that the initial expansion of the building between 1900 and 1910 may have been only a single story high, with the upper stories having been added when the south addition was built around 1940. This would account for the marked difference in window designs. The other possibility is that the upper floors had windows like those in the original portion of the building that were then altered to their current form, probably when the south addition was built. The east elevation is similar in character to the north, except that the steel sash appear on all floors. The southern part of this elevation is the east elevation of the south addition from about 1940, with similarly plain brick walls and steel industrial window sash.

The south addition's main west elevation is in the same plane as that of the original building but is much plainer in character. The brick walls are unornamented except for a modestly-projecting brick cornice; windows and doors are placed asymmetrically. The windows have stone sills and plain lintels, while the doors are aluminum-and-glass replacements of recent vintage. The window on the first floor is composed of glass blocks, while steel industrial sash fill all the other openings on this elevation and on the similarly-designed south elevation. On that elevation, the windows on the first floor are small, paired steel sash, while on the upper floor they are the same size as on other elevations.

The interior is plain and unornamented, clearly functional in character. The structure is a combination of steel and wood. Steel beams have replaced original wood ones in the older portion of the building, while in the south addition and in areas of the second and third floors it appears that the original design consisted of steel columns and beams with wood floor joists.

The spaces on each floor are open, with no partitioning. Some remnants of the original building's south wall remain in place, but large portions have been cut through or removed entirely.

There are three stairways in the building, all of concrete construction with pipe railings. All of these appear to date from construction of the south wing around 1940.