“lower floors of Haddington Island stone, the upper floors in pressed brick trimmed with ornamental terra-cotta. the main entrance trimmed with Bancroft Cipolino marble, the stairs finished in the same material…” “designed to be as fireproof as possible”

The building was equipped with high speed elevators that ran on DC electricity, from the same source used by the streetcar system. When the streetcars went by and up the hill the elevators would slow down. It was one of the last buildings in Vancouver to use DC.

The building opened in 1912 and was briefly the tallest building in the British Empire.

The plasterwork was done by the noted craftsman John Wartman. His delightfully quirky house is on Slocan at Oxford.