The property on which the Tidewater Building sits was laid out by government surveyors in the 1860s and was bought in 1884 by John L. Plummer as a farm.

In 1918, William O. Jenkins purchased the property with the intention of building a country house that he believed would be sufficiently far from the encroachment of the city.

In January 1954, Getty began a court battle to set aside the restrictions ahead of their 1961 end and convert the property to commercial use.

[3] On February 8, 1954, Superior Judge Alfred L. Bartlett ruled in Getty's favor, allowing the owner to build an office on the site.

[7] On April 17, 1957, Tidewater president David T. Staples announced from San Francisco that his company would construct a six-storey office on Wilshire Boulevard.

Three storeys of below-ground parking accommodating 400 cars would be included, and there would be a total of 427,000 square feet of usable floor space.

[13] On December 5, Tidewater held the official dedication ceremony for the new building; the date coincided with the company's 80th birthday.

Vice-president Charles R. Brown remarked that "those of us died-in-the-wool San Franciscans may have recoiled at the thought of living in Los Angeles.

San Francisco with its cold winds, damp fogs, noisy cable cars seems to be fading fast from our memories."

Recorded speeches by William F. Humphrey, president from 1933 to 1953, and J. Paul Getty were played for the audience, while chairman of the board David T. Staples made the official welcome.

[17] In March 1966, Tidewater announced a deal with Phillips Petroleum to sell the latter its west coast refining and retailing operations for $385 million.

Upon the purchase, the building would serve as the headquarters for three Unionamerica subsidiaries: Harbor, Swett & Crawford, and the Western Mortgage Corporation.