Designed by noted New York architect Arthur Loomis Harmon (1878–1958) and built in 1926, this historic structure is an eleven-story, U-shaped, steel frame and brick building with cast stone and granite trim that was created in an Italian Renaissance Revival style.

Mary Brown Warburton, then president of the EAP, hired New York architect Arthur Loomis Harmon to design a multi-story hotel building in the heart of Philadelphia's growing downtown.

The site of the hotel was selected on the northeast comer of South 20th and Sansom Streets where several earlier nineteenth century rowhouses were recently demolished.

When completed, the Italian Renaissance Revival styled hotel had a full service restaurant, snack bar, ballroom and roof top band alcove.

It distributed food, clothing, and healthcare accessories for indigent families and offered vocation training and sewing classes to children disabled by polio.

The 1930 City Directory of Philadelphia lists five small businesses along South 20th Street in addition to the EAP: a tailor, Bertha Page, a milliner, a florist, and an optician.

The Dominican Congregation sold the Lucy Eaton Smith Residence in 2001, as the aging Sisters were unable to operate a large facility.

as a Rehabilitation Investment Tax Credit project and its 150 rooms were converted into 144 redesigned affordable apartments now known as Kate's Place.