Occidental Life Building

The Occidental Life Insurance Company was organized in Albuquerque in 1906. Incorporators and directors of the Company were Joshua S. Raynolds, president of the First National Bank of Albuquerque and the First National Bank of El Paso; Rufus J. Palen, president of the First National Bank of Santa Fe; Salomon Luna, president of the Bank of Commerce of Albuquerque; Alonzo B. McMillen, attorney for the First National Bank of Albuquerque; and Joseph O'Reilley, an Albuquerque insurance man. At the time the company was organized it was the only insurance company headquartered between Kansas City and Los Angeles and it was regarded in insurance circles as an experiment of doubtful success. Organized with a capital of $100,000 by 1917 when its new headquarters was constructed it had $10,000,000 of insurance in force with assets of $850,000.

In 1917 only A. B. McMillan, then president remained actively connected with the company. Raynolds was retired, Palen and Luna were deceased, and O'Reilly was engaged in other businesses. George Roslington, then vice-president and secretary, was the manager of the company with the directorate composed of McMillen, Roslington; C.N. Blackwell, a banker from Raton; John W. Poe, a banker from Roswell; and Dr. James H. Wroth of Albuquerque General agencies were maintained in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas, with another being established in Missouri at the time. In the mid-1920s the company moved its headquarters from Albuquerque to Raleigh, North Carolina and it is now known as the Occidental Life Insurance Company of North Carolina.

Henry Charles Trost of Trost and Trost of El Paso, the designer of the building, was a successful and influential force in the architectural development of the Southwest in the early twentieth century. The Occidental Life Building was designed toward the end of his career and is an interesting example of his attitude toward historic styles. Trost, seemingly not compelled to develop an identifiable personal style, was freer than many architects to use any stylistic vocabulary he pleased. While he is recognized particularly for his work in the Sullivanesque, Prairie Style, and later the Pueblo Revival, he also designed buildings such as the 1915 El Paso County Courthouse, in El Paso, Texas, modeled after a public building in Dallas, and the first four buildings of the new campus of the Texas Western School of Mines and Metallurgy, now the University of Texas at El Paso, patterned after the architecture of Bhutan. Because of his stylistic freedom, he was able to successfully design the Occidental Life Building after the design motif of the Venetian Doge's Palace was suggested by A.B. McMillan, president of the company.

Even though the original design was certainly derived from the Doge's Palace, elements of it were similar to other Trost buildings. The projecting cornice, subsequently destroyed by the fire, was reminiscent in detail and proportion of the one topping the Anson Mills Building in El Paso designed by Trost in 1910. The arcade of the Occidental Life Building is similar to that in one of Trost's earlier works, the First Owls Club in Tucson, commissioned in 1899.

Also, like the Owls Club, the Occidental Life Building had a row of clerestory openings above the arches, and a row of quatrefoils, while those in the Owls Club are oval. The arches of the Owls Club are embellished with Sullivanesque ornament; those of the Occidental Life Building is more organic. While the arcade was stylistically correct, the arches also reflect a vernacular tradition in Southwestern architecture.

The remodeling of the building following the 1933 fire was the work of W. Miles Britell Sr., a prominent Albuquerque architect whose work includes the Grant County Courthouse in Silver City, several buildings at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, and the coliseum at the New Mexico State Fairgrounds. His remodeling of the Occidental Life Building more closely resembles the Doge's Palace than the original building.

The building is significant partly because of the successful, locally organized insurance company which built it. Begun as an operation of unlikely success, because of the high personal and financial characteristics of the persons involved, it was a successful operation that continues today. It is also significant because it was designed by the highly regarded architect Henry Trost, and is one of several of Trost's designs extant in the state. It is important to the central business district of Albuquerque as a building of beauty and architectural individuality which continues as an important landmark in the city.