After the New York City Bar Association was founded in 1870, it housed itself in a series of buildings in Lower Manhattan.

By the 1890s, membership of the Association had grown to the point where its leadership began looking for a new House farther uptown.

Eidlitz had designed a number of landmark buildings throughout the country, including Dearborn Station in Chicago, Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, St. Peter's Church in the Bronx, and Bell Laboratories Building in Manhattan.

The new House was considerably larger and grander than its precursors: it stood six stories tall; included a meeting hall with a seating capacity of 1,500; a reception hall with a standing capacity of 1,500; a library of over 50,000 volumes, and three additional floors of offices.

The Association opened the doors of its new House on October 8, 1896, with a gala of several thousand guests.