of pure Renaissance style of architecture, modernized and adapted for office purposes, and after Mr. Spreckels' approval of the plans, bids were invited, and the construction of the building began.

Excavating for the foundation began in December, 1895, and as the OVERLAND goes to press the building is practically completed and occupied, the bustle and push of energetic contractors and their workmen giving place to the better hatted and coated, but not less busy men, who are its tenants.

It perhaps might be worthy of mention here and creditable to the manufacturers and producers of our State to say that nearly all the material entering into the construction of the building was the product of their quarries and factories.

The building is entirely of steel frame construction, which is braced not only against wind and ordinary elements, but against earthquakes as well, the whole superstructure of steel being anchored down to the solid conglomerate mass of the steel and concrete foundation, forming one continuous rigid construction to top of dome. The details of the steel framework from these immense anchors built into the foundations and riveted to the base of steel columns, and the system of bracing consist of two sections of vertical diagonal braces on either side of the building and extending its full height. reinforced on four lower floors with heavy portal arches in the corner sections and with wide plate girders encircling the building at each floor level with gusset brackets and column connections throughout. The whole construction is put to

A SUITE OF OFFICES

THE ELEVATOR GRILL

gether with rivets driven hot,-in builders' parlance, hot field riveting, no nuts and bolts of the ordinary character being used.

The facings of the exterior walls on all four sides, with the exception of the first seven feet above the street level, which is of finally bush-hammered granite from the Raymond Granite Company's quarry at Raymond, California, are light grayish sandstone, the three lower stories laid up with heavy rusticated joints, giving a massive buttress-like appearance to the base of the building. From the third to the eleventh story the treatment is very plain, with simple molded architraves around the window openings. Above the eleventh story a horizontal belt course, which might be likened to the neck mold of a column, separates it from the next three stories, which are treated in a highly ornamental manner in the nature of the capital of a column, with elaborate carvings, surmounted by a broad projecting cornice, supported on carved medallions and ornamental bed moldings.

The next or fifteenth story at each corner of the building forms a base for turrets, between which it is treated as a colonnade, with cornice and open balustrade above. At this level the outline of the dome is formed,

with the four corners gradually leaving the base of dome and finishing as detached turrets. This forms the sixteenth story. Above this the dome rises, three stories in height, with twelve dormer windows in each level. From the apex of the dome a lantern extends to the height of thirty-five feet additional, supported on columns with open arches on all sides. Each of these arches will be illuminated with electric lights. The apex of the lantern is three hundred and fifteen feet, and the gilded ball on top of the flagstaff is three hundred and fifty feet above the street level.

The interior construction of the building, being in keeping with the exterior, is absolutely fire-proof. All the interior partitions are of hollow terra cotta, and the floors cinder concrete filled in between the steel beams. The corridors leading to the different offices are wainscoted with marble, with plate glass above, and the office apartments are all finished in polished oak with polished hardwood floors. All the offices are outside rooms and are exceptionally well lighted. They are arranged en suite, and equipped in the most modern manner with office safes, coat closets, lavatories, etc.

A portion of the street floor is occupied

as the business office of the San Francisco Call, which paper was purchased some time since by Mr. John D. Spreckels. This office is finished in marble and mahogany, with ceilings frescoed in allegorical subjects. The Columbian Banking Company on Market street and T. Lundy's jewelry store on Third street take up the balance of this floor. On the second floor are the offices of the proprietor and business manager of the Call and other offices, each succeeding floor above to the fifteenth being devoted exclusively to offices. On that floor is an exceptionally fine restaurant, whose extreme elevation and the magnificent view it affords make it a pleasing innovation to San Franciscans, and it will give the stranger the best view he can obtain in the city. The mezzanine floor above is the restaurant kitchen.

The sixteenth and seventeenth floors will be occupied by the new San Francisco Club, and the eighteenth by the architects of the building.

All these floors are connected with the street by three fast-running hydraulic elevators of the latest and most approved type, which combines the maximum of speed with the minimum of danger; an iron stairway also leads from dome to basement.

On either side and over the entrance are two pedestals bearing electric light standards, and between the standards and on the broad frieze directly over the entrance is the inscription "Claus Spreckels Building." The entrance vestibule, or rotunda, is finished in colored marble, with marble mosaic floors. The entrance doors are galvano plastic bronze and plate glass; and the elevator enclosures, wrought bronze columns and cornice, with arches, panels, and doors, filled with artistically wrought open bronze grillwork.

The elaborateness of the whole entrance is not garish, it gives the eye a pleasant scene of complete fitness; arch, carved column, spandrel, wall, ceiling, floor, and grill, making a beautiful and harmonious whole.

The first intention of Mr. Spreckels was to have all the working departments of the Call in this building, but latterly this idea was abandoned, and a property on Stevenson street in the rear was purchased, on which a four-story building has been erected. Here is contained all the working machinery of that paper, the editorial, telegraph, and local rooms, art, zinc process, and stereotyping rooms, linotype machines, and all other departments necessary to the manufacture of the great newspaper of today, except the press and mailing rooms, which are in the basement of the "Claus Spreckels Building," and are connected with the rest by an underground tunnel, through which runs an automatic cable car.

In the Stevenson street basement is located the power plant for the both buildings, engines, boilers, and dynamos, pumps for elevators, and a deep well pump, ar

PILLARS AT THE ENTRANCE

ranged to take water either from an artesian well or from the city mains. The "Claus Spreckels Building" is thus independent of all outside service, having its own power, heat, light, and water.

Finishing the description of the building, we can only paraphrase our remarks, and say that Mr. Spreckels has erected a building of which the city is proud, and he ought to be, and while he built for himself he perhaps "builded better than he knew."