The historic W.S. Hills building in downtown El Paso will soon be the subject of substantial renovation, capped with the addition of four new upper floors.
Located at the corner of East San Antonio and Texas avenues, the structure was built in 1926 and for years has housed lower level retail and upper level office space.
The new renovation, as designed by a team of architects from the firms up of In*Situ and Root Architects, will see a modern glass-walled topper that will be mostly made up of loft style apartments and office space.
The ground floor of the structure will include both business and retail space.
Legendary southwest architect Henry Trost is the designer for the original building. The new design team says the addition will be done in a way that “references the historic building structurally, rhythmically and materially.”
That original structure, designed in what is described as a Second Renaissance Revival style, was named after El Paso attorney and developer W.S. Hills.
Several decades after Hills died in 1898, his wife Mary commissioned Trost to design the structure, which would be described by the El Paso Herald upon its early 1927 inauguration as a “handsome polished granite and terra cotta building.”
By Garry Boulard
