The hotel was built for John Arbuckle, a Brooklyn coffee and sugar importer, and named after his sister Margaret.

It was home to several prominent artists, including etcher Joseph Pennell, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sigrid Undset, and Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

[3] In 1986, architect Stanton Eckstut was hired to design a new residence on the site, which incorporates architectural elements that pay tribute to the former hotel's copper patina details, terracotta façade, and corner bay windows.

[5] Completed in architect Frank Freeman's signature Richardsonian Romanesque style, the building has been described as "a rangy, Victorian apartment house in brick, terra cotta and pressed metal with vivid and witty ornament"[6] and as "the outstanding building of the Post Civil War period" in the locality.

[4] A contemporary source described the building as: ... a huge and imposing apartment house, designed by Frank Freeman in a free adaptation of Romanesque.