Gleaming terra-cotta sheathes the compound piers and ornate spandrels of the strongest expression of the Chicago School frame in El Paso. Double-hung windows with transoms entirely fill the space between piers and spandrels. The piers extend above the cornice to terminate at stout finials with a crenellated parapet between them. Spandrel and cornice ornament has a Gothic character. Cattlemen Martin D. Roberts and William M. Banner constructed the building in response to the city’s growth from the influx of Mexican Revolution exiles. A rehabilitation by developer Lane Gaddy in 2012 cleaned the brilliant terra-cotta, thus recovering the contrast between it and the dark brown wood-framed windows. Gaddy converted the structure into forty loft apartments.
Hugh Braunton (1871–1945) and John Grant Leibert (1887–1949) practiced in Vancouver from 1912 to 1913, moved briefly to Seattle, and then opened an office in El Paso in 1915 in the Two Republics Building, where Trost and Trost’s studio was also located.
To the south at 207–211 N. Stanton is Braunton and Leibert’s Lanier Building (1916). Its upper facade of terra-cotta is visible above ground-floor alterations. An advertisement for the National Terra Cotta Society in the September 24, 1921, issue of The Literary Digest includes a rendering of the Lanier Building by architectural illustrator Hugh Ferris.