In 1909 Louis Sullivan and George Grant Elmslie designed the Henry Babson residence, with Elmslie working extensively on all aspects of the house. When Babson wanted alterations around 1912, he entrusted them to Elmslie and his new partner, William Purcell. The two architects designed furniture for the house, including a tall-case clock, andirons, and this box chair with a small carved "B" on each side. In a contemporary photograph, the chair is shown across from a nineteenth-century Chinese chair of Babson's which might well have inspired it, just as Asian design influenced the furniture and architecture of Chalres and Henry Green's California bungalows.