The ground level is covered in a cast iron arcade and designed as storefronts, while the second story is covered in a Roman brick and is designed to serve as artist studios with large windows to allow natural light to enter.

[2] Some of the studio's residents have included sculptors Albin Polasek, his student John David Brcin, John Storrs, and Nancy Cox-McCormack; illustrator J. Allen St. John; muralists Frances Badger,[3] John Warner Norton and Louis Grell; painters Scott Shellstrom,William Carr Olendorf,Ruth VanSickle Ford, Robert Wadsworth Grafton, James Murray Haddow, Antonin Sterba, James J. Ingwersen, John Doctoroff, Gus Likan, Richard Florsheim, Leopold Seyffert and Pauline Palmer, Carl Tolpo and Lily Tolpo; and actors Peter Falk and Burgess Meredith.

With support from the financial services company American Express WMF awarded a grant toward the preparation of an architectural significance survey and a feasibility study for the site.

The results of the significance survey led to the sites being designated as Chicago landmarks.

Architectural details were re-created from surviving fragments in on-site woodworking shops.