{"nrhp_refnum":"03000059","name":"Superior Oil Company Building","other_names":["Downtown Standard Hotel","Bank of California"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"550 S. Flower St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Los Angeles","county":"Los Angeles County","state":"CA","lat":34.05040004800003,"lon":-118.257054257,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2003-02-28","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A twelve-story, square-plan, late Moderne office building at 550 South Flower Street in downtown Los Angeles, built in 1955 for the Superior Oil Company and later converted to a hotel.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the building is an excellent example of the Corporate Moderne style of tall office buildings in Los Angeles, built before the 1957 lifting of the city's height limit. It has a light marble and stainless steel exterior over a darker base, so the upper floors appear to float. The exterior and the original elevator lobby, with its oil-industry decoration, remain highly intact.","narrative":"Completed in 1955 at the corner of South Flower and West 6th Streets in downtown Los Angeles, this twelve-story office building was designed by architect Claud Beelman and built by William Simpson for the Superior Oil Company. It has a steel frame with concrete shear walls, a square plan, and a small mechanical tower on the flat roof. Above the ground floor, white marble piers alternate with stainless steel spandrel panels and green-tinted Solex glass windows. The original elevator lobby survives intact, with terrazzo floors, marble walls, a sculptural frieze about oil production, a world clock, and door handles shaped like an \"S\" for Superior. The building is considered an example of Corporate Moderne design from the period before a 1957 change in the city's height limit. Bank of California bought it in 1964 and altered the ground floor. A rehabilitation around 2001 converted it to a hotel while keeping the primary facades and character-defining features.","period_of_significance":"1955","architect_builder":"Beelman, Claud (architect); Simpson, William (builder)","architectural_style":"Modern Movement/Moderne (Corporate Moderne)","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Converted to hotel use in a rehabilitation around 2001-2002; the building is in current use as a hotel.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:26.861501-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/03000059.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/03000059/2e21205264-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/03000059/2e21205264-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Los Angeles","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Superior_Oil_Company_Building,_Los_Angeles.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Los Angeles</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Superior_Oil_Company_Building,_Los_Angeles.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123859568","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Delphi_Hotel","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7643550"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/los-angeles-county/superior-oil-company-building-03000059/"}