Samuel L. Mather, the grandson of one of the founding fathers of the Connecticut Land Company whose investment had led to the establishment of Cleveland, co-founded the iron-ore mining and shipping firm of Pickands, Mather & Co. in 1883, which helped him amass a new fortune on top of his already formidable wealth. Pickands Mather had kept offices for only a short time in the Perry-Payne Building on Superior Avenue when Mather commissioned the Chicago architectural firm of Burnham & Root (already known locally for its Society for Savings Building) to design a headquarters office building on land that he and John Hay had purchased on the northwest corner of Superior and Water Street (now W. 9th).

The aptly named Western Reserve Building occupied a triangular parcel on the crest of a steep hill descending into the flats along the river. The land had once been home to the Carter Tavern, a hewn-log inn that early Western Reserve of Connecticut settler Lorenzo Carter had built in 1803. Following Carter's death in 1814, Phineas Shepard operated the inn for an unknown span of time, and it was the site of the meeting in 1816 that organized Trinity Parish, later Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. After it closed, deeds show that Carter's children Alonzo and Laura sold the land to the Oviatt family in two transactions in 1825 and 1830. By 1828, the Oviatts had replaced the old two-story inn with a three-story brick building that stood until Orson M. Oviatt razed it for a new four-story commercial block called the Franklin Buildings in 1835. The Franklin Buildings housed various dry-goods houses and professional offices, including the men's clothing store of George A. Davis, who owned the block from 1851 until his death ten years later.

The Franklin Buildings later housed Western Union Telegraph Company, which added "innumerable adornments of fencing and wires which surmount[ed] the electric ridden structure," according to an account in the Plain Dealer in 1886. Three years later, Hay and Mather, the executors of Amasa Stone's estate, purchased the property in the estate's name and set out to redevelop it. (Hay's and Mather's wives Clara and Flora were Stone's daughters.) Following on the heels of the Perry-Payne Building, the announcement of a new building to replace the Western Union block was a welcome news to those who feared Euclid Avenue's inroads. As the Plain Dealer pointed out in 1889, "Enough is now promised in the way of new buildings to save the street from becoming what it had at one time threatened to do—a street for banks and the wholesale trade plentifully mixed up with saloons."

Mather’s new eight-story pressed-brick and sandstone Western Reserve Building, which opened in 1892, is considered a transitional skyscraper. Like Burnham & Root’s Monadnock Building in Chicago and Cudell & Richardson's Perry-Payne Building, it had traditional load-bearing masonry exterior walls but also incorporated some interior steel framing, a recent innovation. On the ground floor, the Western Reserve Building featured pink sandstone piers capped by Romanesque capitals and a large Romanesque arch framing its Water Street entrance. Its upper floors had either rectangular, segment arch, or full arch windows, some of them in oriel bays. Samuel Mather had an elaborate cherry-paneled office inside. 

In addition to Pickands Mather, the Western Reserve Building housed American Steel & Wire, Cleveland-Cliffs Iron, Island Creek Coal, and other shipping, mining, and manufacturing concerns. The building’s uses reflected business leaders’ desire to locate offices in the Wholesale District (later renamed the Warehouse District) close to Cleveland’s harbor. The riverside location was also attractive to the U.S. Weather Bureau. On May 1, 1892, Cleveland’s weather observatory and signal station opened there, 135 feet above the street, giving it a commanding view of the lake and river. From this lofty perch, signalman and weather observer W. B. Stockman hoisted flags to alert ship captains and downtown pedestrians to impending changes in the weather. The station had previously operated on top of the six-story Wilshire Block on Superior Avenue a block and a half west of Public Square. Now it was another beneficiary of Mather’s eagerness to be closer to the harbor.

In 1903, the Western Reserve Building was expanded northward along Water Street with an interior lightwell that may have drawn inspiration from Burnham & Root’s Rookery Building in Chicago or perhaps from a similar feature inside the Perry-Payne Building. The expansion increased the original building's size by about 40 percent. The building flourished into the 1920s, but like other buildings west of Public Square, it faced increasing competition from newer ones that rose to the east along Euclid Avenue. In 1924, Mather sold his interest in the Western Reserve Building to the Union Lennox Company, a firm named for the mammoth Union Trust Building that had recently replaced the Lennox Building on the northeast corner of Euclid and East 9th. Soon after, Pickands Mather moved its headquarters into the Union Trust Building. With the loss of its identity as a hub of the city's iron-ore business and the rise of newer, larger skyscrapers, the Western Reserve Building's future was in question.

The Western Reserve Building changed hands twice during World War II and, under Louis E. Goldman, it underwent a modernization in 1947 that covered its Romanesque arch entrance with a blocky granite façade. Despite this effort to renew its appeal, over the next three decades, the building stood sentinel over a part of downtown that was gradually decaying and receding in civic importance. Toward the end of that time, Goldman was no longer able to attract tenants, so the building sat mostly vacant. The exception to the rule was the opening in 1970 of the Cleveland Urban Learning Community, an experiment by St. Ignatius High School that took advantage of cheap rent to place its headquarters in the Western Reserve Building.

The Cuyahoga River’s east bank had been a natural place for Samuel Mather to envision an office building housing his iron mining and shipping business in the early 1890s. Although seemingly less natural, Herbert W. Strawbridge, chairman of the Higbee Company department store, felt a similar pull toward the western edge of the derelict Warehouse District nine decades later. Several years earlier, Strawbridge had visited San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square, a shopping, dining, and entertainment complex filling the shell of its namesake chocolate manufacturer’s former factory. As Higbee’s downtown store sales slipped, Strawbridge recalled Ghirardelli Square. Then he hatched a daring plan to buy a swath of property overlooking the river and create a similar venue. Settlers’ Landing, as it would be named, would evoke Cleveland’s start along its river and, like Ghirardelli Square, reuse existing buildings as much as possible. More importantly, Strawbridge reasoned, Settlers’ Landing could draw large numbers of tourists and suburbanites back to a sagging downtown—and hopefully to Higbee’s.

Among the properties that the newly formed Higbee Development Corporation bought through agent John H. Bustamante was the Western Reserve Building, which Goldman was doubtless thrilled to unload in 1973. Strawbridge then hired Lawrence Halprin, the man behind Ghirardelli Square, to plan Settlers’ Landing. Higbee Development sank $4.5 million into a full renovation of the Western Reserve Building in 1974-76. The results drew a mixed response locally. Some decried the sandblasting that pitted the delicate sandstone facade. Others looked askance at the similarly insensitive treatment of the building’s interior. To avoid removing any leasable space, Higbee Development enclosed the historic lightwell to add an interior fire escape, heating and cooling ducts, and new restrooms on each floor. Halprin’s designer Angela Tzvetin created a modern lobby with “domed brick vaults” and spiderweb-like iron designs between their pillars, leading one architectural critic to dub the “corny” concept “early wine cellar.” The same critic went so far as to suggest that the Western Reserve Building was “second-rate Burnham and Root” that would have been better off bulldozed.

When the Western Reserve Building reopened in 1976, it seemed that the building had a new relevance as the Flats transitioned from maritime to leisure uses, but renewal was slow and difficult. Higbee’s operated a sandwich shop off the lobby while it searched (ultimately in vain) for a full-service restaurant to assume the space. At the time of the opening, only 1,220 of 53,840 square feet of office space was leased. Then Higbee’s plans for Settlers’ Landing collapsed after a major fire consumed some of the buildings the company had hoped to renovate. Despite efforts to promote the building, including hosting an exhibit and slideshow as part of the 1977 sesquicentennial of the opening of the Ohio Canal, the Western Reserve Building underperformed expectations. Coupled with Higbee’s expenses from opening new stores at Euclid Square and Randall Park malls, its renovation of Pickands Mather’s onetime headquarters building contributed to record quarterly losses that year. By 1981, the building was reportedly at 97 percent occupancy, but Higbee’s needed an infusion of cash, so it sold the building to another syndicate headed by developer John Ferchill.

Though Settlers’ Landing had flopped, the Flats and Warehouse District boomed in the 1980s. Nightspots, restaurants, and loft apartment conversions reinvigorated an area that earlier downtown planners had largely forsaken in their fixation on Erieview. It was too late for Higbee’s, which sold out to Youngstown developer Edward J. DeBartolo and the Little Rock-based Dillard’s chain in 1987 (though the Higbee’s name survived another five years). As for the Western Reserve Building, it flourished anew. Among the firms based there was Those Characters from Cleveland (now CloudCo Entertainment), a subsidiary of Cleveland-based American Greetings that formed in 1981 to develop and license characters developed by the card company such as Holly Hobbie and Strawberry Shortcake. That year saw Cleveland artist Elena Kucharik’s creation of the Care Bears, making the Western Reserve Building the birthplace of one of the 1980s’ popular culture icons.

Ferchill and his partners undertook yet another renovation in 1990 and built an eight-story addition to the north that doubled the size of the 1892/1903 building. The sandstone- and microcotta-faced addition featured a new arched entry, while the syndicate uncovered and restored the long-hidden one on the original building. After initial success, the enlarged building gradually languished again. By 2016, it was two-thirds vacant and in foreclosure, leading Ferchill to sell it the following year to WRB Partners (comprised of developer Fred Geis, real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, and others). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Western Reserve Building clung to its original function as an office building in a new era marked by the loss of downtown office-based work and a spate of office to residential conversions. In addition to attracting a global co-working company, WRB Partners added to its amenity-driven approach to combatting the loss of traditional dedicated office work by doing what Higbee’s had tried and failed to do fifty years earlier: entice a restaurant operator. In 2023, the popular Cleveland Heights-based Luna Bakery opened its third cafe on the building’s ground floor.

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In 1907, Hedwig Kosbab, a Hungarian immigrant's daughter and social worker, began teaching English to children on the porch of her mother’s home. As Kosbab’s programs expanded, she moved them first to a storeroom at East 89th Street and Woodland Avenue. In 1910 Kosbab’s venture incorporated at East End Neighborhood House and over the next year held high-profile fundraisers that included a charity bridge party at the Colonial Club and a benefit performance of The Three Lights by May Robson at the Colonial Theater. In 1911 the organization moved into a former saloon at 9410 Holton Avenue to serve a growing immigrant population in the predominantly Hungarian, Slovak, and Italian Buckeye, Woodland, and Woodhill areas and also maintained a summer playground and training garden at Woodland and East 93rd Street. East End Neighborhood House was guided by influential board members such as Samuel Mather, Rollin White (founder of White Consolidated Industries, co-founder of American Ball Bearing Company, and founder of Baker Motor Vehicle Company), and O. P. Van Sweringen.

East End Neighborhood House moved to 2749 Woodhill Road in 1916. The house had previously served as the residence of J. T. and Catherine Wamelink. J. T. Wamelink was a Dutch immigrant, musician, composer, and music store proprietor who also invested in real estate on Cleveland’s east side in the latter half of the nineteenth century. On one of his parcels Wamelink created a triangular subdivision bounded by Woodland Avenue, Woodland Hills Avenue (later Woodhill Road), and Steinway Avenue, a new street whose name reflected his musical interest. The Wamelinks retained eight acres to the east, across Woodland Hills Avenue, as their homestead. There they built a large, two-and-a-half story, hipped-roof frame house in 1894. After Mr. Wamelink died in 1900, Catherine subdivided much of the homestead in 1907. These lots remained unbuilt, and in 1912 the Weybridge Land Company, a “straw corporation” for M. J. and O. P. Van Sweringen’s real estate interest, bought the entirety of the Wamelink property before transferring it to the Van Sweringen Company. Both entities stipulated in the transfer deeds a life interest for Mrs. Wamelink that enabled her to remain in her home, which she did until her death in 1915. The Van Sweringen Company continued to own the property until East End Neighborhood House acquired it in 1933.

In the years after Hedwig Kosbab died in 1922, East End Neighborhood House initiated other clubs, summer programs, and craft classes in addition to the ongoing English classes she had started. The organization directed more of its energies toward serving African Americans following the Buckeye neighborhood’s racial transition that began in the 1940s. A $100,000 addition designed by architect Philip L. Small was completed in 1950. The addition contained a large room with a stage, lounges with a kitchen, sewing rooms, woodworking and ceramic rooms, craft rooms, and a photographic dark room. East End Neighborhood House served more than 4,000 people at that time and had a daycare for children and older individuals, programs for children, transportation, a gardening center, music and art programs, and vocational training for high school dropouts. Two classes for adults entitled "Understanding Your Child" and "Home Nursing" were created in 1959. A new "Taking Off Pounds Sensibly" program began in 1961 that had group therapy discussions every week. East End Neighborhood House also collaborated with other organizations and groups to put on events such as Circus Day and the Soap Box Derby.

Today, East End Neighborhood House remains in its 2749 Woodhill Road location and is thriving. It still offers daycare and after-school programs for children and services to the elderly. The organization now offers home visits for children at risk and hosts Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

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In the days of horse-drawn carriages and booming industry, one street in Cleveland showcased the elite among the city's citizens. Millionaires' Row, a length of Euclid Avenue, was where prominent figures such as John D. Rockefeller, Marcus Hanna, and Charles F. Brush built their mansions. The largest among them was built for Samuel Mather, chairman of Pickands, Mather & Company, one of the four largest shippers of iron ore in the country. He held the position of officer or director for over two dozen iron, banking, and transportation corporations. For years Mather was among the richest citizens in Cleveland and contributed more than $8 million to community-based organizations.

When it was completed in 1910, the 45-room Mather Mansion was the most expensive home in Cleveland and was the largest home ever built on Euclid Avenue. It was among the street's most luxurious mansions, with handcrafted stone, brick and woodwork and a third-floor ballroom with a 16-foot ceiling that could easily hold 300 guests. Mather Mansion's scale and opulence reflected its owner's attempt to arrest the declining desirability of Millionaires' Row as commercial and industrial buildings encroached. Mather commissioned Charles Schweinfurth, who had previously designed the Rockefeller Park Bridges and at least twelve homes on the street, to design the mansion. Mather was already a supporter of Schweinfurth's work, having given the architect $1 million to cover the cost of building nearby Trinity Cathedral.

As the commercial district of Cleveland pressed further down Euclid Avenue, the elaborate homes began to lose their grandeur in the wake of skyscrapers and large retail stores, and Mather's home proved to be the last built on the storied street. Between 1923 and 1951, many of the homes on Millionaire's Row were demolished to make way for parking lots and commercial buildings. In the mid-1950s, the homes between Mather Mansion and East 30th Street were demolished to make way for the Innerbelt Freeway. Even more homes were torn down in the following decades to accommodate the expansion of Cleveland State University's campus.

Yet, lying just out of the way of the interstate highway and at some distance from the core of CSU's emerging campus, Mather Mansion survived. Upon Samuel Mather's death in 1931, the residence passed to the Cleveland Institute of Music and in 1940 the property was transferred to the Cleveland Automobile Club (an affiliate of AAA). In 1967 Cleveland State University acquired and renovated Mather Mansion, and six years later the house became one of the first Cleveland buildings to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. By 1975, Mather Mansion was among only seven remaining Millionaire Row's homes, allowing a rare glimpse of the magnificence that once dominated Euclid Avenue. In 2009-10 it served as the temporary home of the University's History and Philosophy departments.

In 2014, the university abandoned plans to renovate the Tudor mansion into a boutique hotel and instead allocated $2.7 million to renovate the mansion into the new home for the Center for International Services and Programs, a program to teach English as a second language.

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