Palace Office Building

Palace Office Building. . , The Palace Hotel Building was built in 1879 as part of the rebuilding of Butler after it was burned during the Civil War. It is a good example of high style Italianate architecture with elaborate bracketed cornice. It originally had an exterior second story balcony but it collapsed in the early 1900's. The building was constructed for retail business on the first floor, a hotel on the second floor, and a spacious place for entertaining on the third floor. This became the commercial and social center of the city., The first floor originally housed M.S. Cowles Clothing, then the American Clothing House, and finally J. C. Penny's [sic - Penney]. The second floor was a luxury hotel for many years and later became office space. The third floor was a banquet and ballroom space for the regions [sic - region's] elite and was taken over by the Elks in 1906. The stair from the second to the third floor and much of the interior wood trim is original. The building continued to operate as a commercial endeavor until the current renovation was undertaken., National Register of Historic Places 2002, Vaughn X. Prost, developer and builder, purchased the property in 2001 with a vision to restore the historic hotel into class "A" office space. Prost Builders of Jefferson City, Missouri, the design builder, completed the historic restoration and renovation in 2003.