The Art Deco style building was designed by architect Francis Palmer Smith of the firm of Pringle and Smith.

The building's namesake, W. W. (Wayman W.) Orr, was the president of the Atlanta Retail Merchants' Association for several years in the 1910s.

[1] It is currently part of the Emory University Hospital Midtown complex.

[2] When opened in 1930, it was notable for its location so far from the city center and marked the beginning of the northern section of Peachtree Street as an automobile-oriented boulevard.

[2][3] The site had been occupied in the 1890s by a residence, that of J. Bulow Campbell, and thereafter by another building.