 Studebaker constructed the building as a carriage sales and service operation with manufacturing on upper floors.The two granite columns at the main entrance, in diameter and high, were said to be the largest polished monolithic shafts in the country.The interior features Art Nouveau motifs and murals by artists such as Martha Susan Baker, Frederic Clay Bartlett, Oliver Dennett Grover, Frank Xavier Leyendecker, and Bertha Sophia Menzler-Peyton dating from the 1898 renovation.