The History of the Medical Arts Building: From Hospital to Hotel

The Medical Arts Building (later known as the Emily Morgan Hotel), located at 705 E. Houston Street at its intersection with Avenue E and across from Alamo Plaza in downtown San Antonio, was constructed in the mid-1920s as a Neo-Gothic skyscraper, which was a popular architectural style throughout the United States during the 1920s. The structure was designed by San Antonio architect Ralph H. Cameron, who was responsible for numerous Alamo City buildings, including the nearby Scottish Rite Cathedral and the U. S.  Post Office and Courthouse (later renamed the Hipolito F. Garcia Federal Building and U. S. Courthouse). Construction began in November 1924, and the Medical Arts Building has been heralded as Cameron’s most significant commercial building in San Antonio and was another successful project of developer and businessman Joseph Madison Nix. San Antonio builder Jack P. Haynes served as general contractor for the construction project.

The Medical Arts Building originally was constructed to house a hospital and doctors’ offices. The thirteen-story, steel and concrete-framed, V-plan structure features eye-catching architectural elements such as a corner tower, a steeply-pitched copper mansard roof with wood ribs, cast iron, and impressive ornamentation and terra cotta sculptural detailing that includes gargoyles that represent figures with medical ailments, such as toothaches. The first three floors of the building, extending from a solid granite base, were originally covered in “ornamental unglazed terra cotta” and had wide arched windows; the upper stories were faced with light-colored brick. A church-like spire emphasizes the acute-angled corner of the building, which marks the northeast corner of the original Alamo courtyard.

The long-awaited Medical Arts Building officially opened to much fanfare on April 12, 1926, and the April 11, 1926, edition of the San Antonio Express described the structure as being “Characterized by the general public as the most beautiful building in the Southwest since first its contour began to take definite shape….” Boasting rental space of 100,000 square feet and a capacity to house more than 380 offices, the Medical Arts Building had a basement with a boiler room, electric ceiling fans for every office, and circulating ice water available on every floor. The top floor held a hospital with planned space for thirty patients’ rooms and five operating rooms. A directory of businesses for the building, in addition to numerous physicians and dentists, included a barbershop, dental supply company, massage therapist, drug company, and optical supply company. The main entrance fronted Houston Street, and an “ambulance entrance” was on Avenue E. The building had four elevators, while a circular stairway led to the top of the sixteen-story tower, which was hexagonal in shape due to the dimensions of the property. The new building stood as a notable landmark for tourists to San Antonio as they traveled the Old Spanish Trail (OST) auto highway, which was established from St. Augustine, Florida, to San Diego, California. San Antonio was the center of this transcontinental highway, which had tourists motor by the Medical Arts Building, which officed many of the founders of the OST. The Medical Arts Building held doctors' and medical-related offices and a hospital for patients until it was converted into a modern office complex in 1976.

In the 1970s the Medical Arts Building gained state and national recognition, which included being added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Alamo Plaza Historic District in 1977. The city of San Antonio also designated the Medical Arts Building as a local landmark, and the structure was profiled on the San Antonio Conservation Society’s Texas Star Trail walking tour of downtown San Antonio.

In 1984 the building was remodeled and opened as the Emily Morgan Hotel (so named, erroneously, for the free Black woman named Emily D. West). The renovations involved the demolition and reconstruction of all internal elements; however, crews left the exterior intact. In 2010 the Emily Morgan Hotel received the San Antonio Chapter of the American Institute of Architects Twenty-Five Year Distinguished Building Award in Recognition of Outstanding Design and Achievement for the Medical Arts Building. In 2012 the hotel underwent a multi-million-dollar renovation and joined the DoubleTree by Hilton family of hotels and has been operating under that entity ever since. The Emily Morgan Hotel is also a member of Historic Hotels Worldwide, a group dedicated to promoting heritage and travel to celebrated historic treasures, and in 2015 the hotel was inducted into the Historic Hotels of America organization.