Originally planned as a complex combining a hotel, theater, and shopping arcade fronting on Canal Street, the Maison Blanche department store located in this building was a favorite among New Orleanians. On its Dauphine Street side, the U-shaped composition provided natural light for the offices on the upper floors, allowing a continuous facade on the Canal Street side. Striving to compete with all the other facades on this commercial street, the building features oversized columns and exuberantly interpreted classical detailing in glazed white terra-cotta. Appropriately, this commercial structure is far more floridly ornamented than the contemporaneous terra-cotta-faced Louisiana Supreme Court building (
OR14
). The terra-cotta was manufactured by the Atlantic Terra Cotta Company of New York. Samuel Stone Jr. (1869–1933) collaborated with his architect brothers, Guy and Grover, on this large commission. The renovated building reopened as a hotel in 2000.