The man who designed this commercial-residential building was unique among architects. The dream of Andrew Thomas of New York was to erase slums from the urban landscape; he devoted his career to upgrading mass housing through such original concepts as the garden apartment. When he undertook the Rockefeller Estates project, he was applying his avant-garde ideas to create a planned community on a much higher socio-economic scale than his work elsewhere.

Intended as the gateway to the Rockefeller Hills Village the building was completed in 1930 at an estimated cost of $600,000. It provided convenient shopping and office facilities and 14 apartments for those not interested in purchasing the single-family homes that would predominate in the Village.

The building was constructed of concrete, brick and tile with steel casement windows. The style of the facade is Romanesque, freely interpreted in the American manner. The central portion stands four stories high under a peaked slate roof with hipped dormers. The entrance façade features stone quoins and exposed beam design. There are shops at ground level and twelve apartments plus offices upstairs. The old Cleveland Trust bank office boasts a beautiful hand painted ceiling.