The fourth Tremont Temple sits on this site, the earliest having been built as a theater in 1828. That building was acquired by a Baptist congregation about 1840 and used for both religious services and as income-producing property, a pattern followed in the construction of the present building, which replaced the third Tremont Temple (burned in 1893). There are shops on the ground floor, offices on the second floor, and the theater, which seats three hundred, is behind a wall of multicolored diaper work. The upper section of the building contains offices and meeting rooms. At the basement and first-floor levels, behind the shops, there is also Meionaon Hall, which seats eight hundred. The entire facade is constructed of brick, Indiana limestone, and terra-cotta.
Tremont Temple is generally credited to Clarence H. Blackall, who later specialized in theater designs. Indeed, it does not look like a temple, the exterior being more expressive of a theater than many of the conventional classical theater buildings in Boston. The polychromatic center section of the facade derives from the Doge's Palace in Venice.
Next to Tremont Temple stands the more sedate Omni Parker House Hotel, a longstanding Boston institution now housed in a black granite, limestone, and buff brick Classical Revival box. The first Parker House was established on this site in 1856 and was frequented by many of the city's most famous residents and visitors.