It was designed by architect É. Frère Champney, who graduated from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1900 and who worked at Carrere and Hastings in Buffalo, New York, as chief designer for the firm's projects at the Pan-American Exposition, and who later worked on structures at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition and at the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland, Oregon, before coming to Seattle in 1907.