James W. Reid (architect)

Earlier buildings designed by the Reid Brothers firm had been commissioned by banker Aaron Guard Cloud in McLeansboro, Illinois, 60 miles from Evansville.

E. S. Babcock, one of the founders of the Coronado Beach Company, was a retired railroad executive from Evansville, Indiana, and had known the brothers there.

The Reid Brothers were invited out to San Diego in 1886 to design the Hotel Del Coronado, though Merritt remained behind in Evansville for a time, and their younger brother Watson Elkinah Reid joined James in San Diego to help manage the more than 2,000 mostly Chinese laborers that worked on the project.

At the time of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, James was included in the "Committee of Fifty" that was called into existence by Mayor Eugene Schmitz to manage the crisis during the disaster, and was actively involved in the city's post-earthquake restoration.

The Reids designed many buildings during San Francisco's "City Beautiful" period, including the Fairmont Hotel (1906), the Geneva Car Barn Office Building (1899), the First Congregational Church (1914), the 3rd generation Cliff House (1909), the Hale Brothers Department Store (1912), and the Music Stand in Golden Gate Park, and also a number of theaters including the Coliseum (1918), the Alexandria (1923), the Metropolitan (1924) and the Balboa (1926).