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Overview

Sacramento architect George C. Sellon (1881-1954) designed the California-Western States Life Insurance Building for the insurance company in 1926. Rising 216 feet tall, it was one of the city's first skyscrapers containing 14 floors. (The California Fruit Building, a steel-frame tower completed in 1910, might justifably be called Sacramento's first highrise at 10 stories.) The Cal-West Building's title as Sacramento's tallest building was eclipsed a year after its completion in 1926, when the 226-foot Elks Building was finished at 921 11th Street.

Building History

Building lessees began moving into the California-Western States Life Insurance Company Building #1 in 1924. The architectural firm of Dean and Dean, was listed as occupying offices on the 14th floor of the tower in the Sacramento, California, City Directory, 1924, n.p.

Building Notes

In 2011, the Sacramento Art Deco Society presented Cal West Partners, L.P. a preservation award for their 2008 restoration of the Cal-West Building into the Citizen Hotel.

The California-Western States Life Insurance Company became known as the American General Life Insurance Company on 12/31/1991.

Architect Charles F. Dean (1884-1956), who worked in the State Architect's Office during the late 1910s and early 1920s, leased office space in the Cal-West Building for many years. He leased Room #1407 on the building's top floor in 1939. George C. Sellon, the building's architect had an office in Room #1313 in 1939. (See the Sacramento, California, City DIrectory, 1939, p. 800.)

PCAD id: 19942