This twenty-first-century adaptive reuse of a nineteenth-century wholesale store, combined with a hotel built in 1981,

illustrates two significant phases of commercial architecture in this part of Savannah. The Guckenheimer Wholesale Store was a monument to the rags-to-riches success of retailer Simon Guckenheimer. Its hulking mass of red brick and white limestone once dwarfed the other commercial buildings on Bay Street. Steady decline in commercial activity in the City Market area in the mid-twentieth century was countered by a growth in tourism, as evidenced by the adjacent four-story hotel.