About Us
Our Building
The James Museum
The James Museum building located on Central Avenue in Downtown St. Petersburg was designed to evoke the aesthetic of the American Southwest and transport visitors from the moment they step through the doors.
The original building opened in 1989 as a two-story department store. In April 2015, The James Museum purchased the building and completed the project within three years. Today, the museum is more than 88,000 square feet with eight distinctive galleries.
Exterior
The exterior of the building features an abstract design suggesting the sandstone mesas of the American Southwest, halfway up the face of the Mesa is a cubist reference to the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings of Colorado.
The Arroyo
Upon entering the museum visitors are greeted by a vast lobby known as the Arroyo. The soaring sandstone walls were created using 22,128 individual Teak sandstone slabs from Jaipur, India. The sandstone’s horizontal bands emulate striations found in canyons and other landforms in the American West. As the visitor wanders through the Arroyo, they will encounter life-sized sculptures and an 18-foot-high waterfall.
The Canyon
The first floor of The James Museum also features the museum shop and café area with a restored, pre-prohibition era 30-foot mahogany saloon bar. The detailed bar back includes carved lion faces, capitals, a scroll design, winged cherub faces and acanthus leaves.
Event Spaces
Museum programs and event rental guests take full advantage of the 5,875 square foot Mesa Hall, the museum’s grandest and most versatile space, as well as the 129-seat Auditorium featuring a 27-foot stage with a state-of-the-art audiovisual system.
Galleries
The second floor of the museum features the more than 26,000 square feet of gallery space. The artwork in each of the museum’s eight galleries is arranged by theme and each theme is signified by a different wall color.
