When Smith learned that it was also the fastest growing city in the nation, he purchased, sight unseen, eight separate properties in Pioneer Square on which to build a headline-inducing skyscraper for the Smith Premier Typewriter Company. The purchase was the largest-ever property sale in Seattle. Smith planned for an 18-story building, but soon found himself in a dispute, according to the Seattle Times, with fellow Seattle developer John Hoge, who had commissioned his Hoge Building around the same time. The two businessmen agreed that they'd each build 14 stories, but production lagged on the Smith Tower, and after Smith passed away in 1910, Hoge unabashedly built 17 stories. A year after Smith's passing, his son Burns Lyman took the Smith Tower project over and in 1911 broke ground on a building that even his father could not have envisioned: a 42-story (according to the 1914 Seattle Times, although more recent reports place it closer to 37 stories) neo-classical skyscraper that would come to define the Seattle skyline and the city itself. The younger Smith had spent much time in Manhattan and brought New York City building principles to the Smith Tower with the help of its architects, Syracuse, New York-based Gaggin and Gaggin. For the steel-framed building, Smith utilized a tower and base method—a wide lower base rising around twenty stories, which then allowed a narrow tower to extend indefinitely skyward. As historian Mark Gelernter notes, this was a method virtually trademarked by New York City's Metropolitan Tower and Woolworth Building, the Smith Tower's two main rivals at the time. It allowed for tall buildings without obstructing light or air. The Smith Tower's steel frame was not the city's first, but it was perhaps its most notable. By eschewing the local timber industry in favor of steel construction materials, the west coast's grandest building ushered in a new and modern era for the region. Roughly 4,000 tons of steel were shipped in from Pittsburgh's American Bridge Co., requiring the use of 164 railroad cars. While constructing the steel frame, contractor E.E. Davis even set a record by laying eight floors of steelwork in one week using a single crane. That kind of national publicity was exactly what Burns Lyman Smith had in mind when he took over the building's development. If the Smith Tower wanted to compete on a national level, there could be no finish too extravagant. Window casings and sashes were made of bronze and gold leaf, doors were finished in mahogany, and Alaskan marble and Mexican onyx appeared throughout the building's lobby. The crown jewel was the 35th floor and its breathtaking views of the city. Also known as the Chinese Room, the 35th floor was a shrine to the blackwood furniture and 17th-century silk paintings given to the Smith family by the Empress Dowager Cixi of China. Included in the room was a Wishing Chair carved with dragons and phoenix. The chair was said to promise marriage for any would-be bride that sat in it. Carved wood and porcelain ceilings showed off the furniture. The building's grandeur extended to its exterior as well.
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