Niels Esperson Building

The Niels Esperson Building is skyscraper designed by John Eberson , and built between 1925 and 1927, for a reported $4.00 million dollars, in Houston, TX.

Niels Esperson Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. The building is, or has also been known as Niels and Mellie Esperson Buildings.

Its precise street address is 808 Travis Street, Houston, TX. You can also find it on the map here.

The building has been restored 2 times over the years to ensure its conservation and adaptation to the pass of time. The main restoration works happened in 2014 and 2023.

John Eberson was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design. But there was also one other architect involved, as far as we know. We are talking about Harry Stewart.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the Niels Esperson Building a reality:

• Samual Bailey Houx in charge of Structural Engineering
• American Construction Company as the Main Contractor
• Mellie Esperson as the Main Developer

The Niels Esperson Building can be categorized as building.

The Niels Esperson Building uses a frame structure made of steel columns and concrete slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade is a non-load bearing masonry facade. This type of facade became common during the period when buildings, especially taller ones, transitioned from load-bearing wall systems to frame structures.

Frame structures allowed facades to be independent from the building's frame, enabling the use of lighter materials and larger openings. However, it took some time for architects to incorporate these new posibilities into their designs, and so for a while they simply replicated the look and feel fo buildings people where used to seeing.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features columns, great urns, terraces, and a grand tempietto at the top, similar to one built in the courtyard of San Pietro in Rome. The first four floors are clad with Indiana limestone, continued by bricks, until we reach the last 5 floors, which are clad with terracotta.

Other materials found at the Niels Esperson Building include, gold-leaf, found at the top of the tower, and bronze, used on elevators doors as well as other decorations around the building.