The E. Clem Wilson Building is one of the best examples of an Art Deco tower in Los Angeles. As other towers of this vintage do, the building stacks a relatively slender, stepped tower above a broad two-story base. This massing provides elegant retail spaces on Wilshire Boulevard, once one of Los Angeles’s premiere retail corridors, while providing foot traffic from the office workers above. In the talented hands of the firm Meyer & Holler, the result is a distinctive anchor that has long been beloved in Miracle Mile.

Built in between 1929 and 1930, the E. Clem Wilson Building is one of three art deco “height limit buildings” in the Miracle Mile neighborhood, along with the Wilshire Tower (Desmond’s) and the Dominguez-Wilshire Building. The three buildings were all completed between 1929-1931, during a building boom that shaped Miracle Mile, but quickly crashed due to the Great Depression.

The E. Clem Wilson has was designed by noted architecture firm Meyer & Holler, known for their opulent commercial buildings and theaters, but best known for their work on the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre. As a design-build firm, they designed and have built more than 200 structures in the Los Angeles area. Unfortunately, the E. Clem Wilson Building was their last commission, as the firm was bankrupted by the Great Depression, but it still displays all of the elegance and attention to detail of Los Angeles architecture from the late 1920s.

One notable later change to the building is the 1954 remodel of the ground-floor retail, designed by notable architect Welton Becket, but the original art deco lobby remains intact.

Because of its height and prime location on the northeast corner of Wilshire and La Brea, the Art Deco Wilson Building has attracted prominent signage. When the Wilson Building opened, it had been topped by a tall dirigible mast. For many years it was known as the Mutual of Omaha tower because of a sign for the insurance company mounted on the roof. After that, an Asahi beer advertisement became a familiar landmark for Wilshire commuters. Asahi took the sign down in the early 2000s. Later a brilliantly lit sign for Samsung electronics decorated the intersection. Now only the faint outline of “Samsung” name remains with no rooftop signage.

Though the building has been listed on the California Register since 1983 through the Section 106 process, in 2024 the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles submitted a nomination of the building as a Historic-Cultural Monument. The Conservancy wrote and spoke in support of the designation. We commend the Art Deco Society and their members for their dedication to preserving art deco resources across the city.