Using an empty car dealership and a c. 1900 frame house, the architects created a small modern museum to display Mary Hulton Phillips's personal collection of Asian jade and ivory sculpture, furniture, and tapestries. Mrs. Phillips's husband, Don, thus the combined name “Maridon,” was the grandson of the founder of T. W. Phillips Gas and Oil Company. The one-story facade of transparent, translucent, opaque, and reflective glass contrasts with the ornate artifacts within, but reflects the streetscape of the residential neighborhood. The adjacent, renovated two-story frame house anchors the cultural institution firmly to the surrounding houses. A glass atrium joins the two disparate pieces harmoniously.