The Balmer and Weber Music House Co Building is a seven-story brick commercial building constructed in 1905 at 1004 Olive Street in downtown St Louis. It was designed by St Louis architect Henry William Kirchner in a Classical Revival style featuring terra cotta ornament. In 1928, following fire damage, St Louis architects Maritz & Young redesigned the lower storefront and the first floor showroom and mezzanine. Using black marble and decorative cast iron, the storefront was reconfigured with an elliptical arched opening containing a broad central window and flanking doors. Since then, the only known alterations have been brick refacing of the seventh floor in 1969; painting of the primary facade; and removal of signage from the center of the third story pediment. Because these later alterations have been minor, they detract little from the building's historic appearance and integrity is retained.

The Balmer and Weber Music House Co Building is locally significant in the area of COMMERCE: The stylish Classical Revival seven-story building opened in 1905 as the retail home of the Balmer & Weber Music House Co, a prominent old German-American firm in downtown St Louis. As exclusive agents in eastern Missouri and southern Illinois for the New York-based Aeolian Co, Balmer and Weber introduced St Louisans to an upscale line of pianos and Pianolas in elegant New York-style display rooms. Two years later in 1907, The Aeolian Co took over the business to become St Louis' dominant downtown music store and a center of music culture for six decades. As a direct branch of the parent company, Aeolian offered local patrons a full selection of company pianos as well as the automatic Pianola for which the company gained world-wide fame; the Pianola line included high-end models manufactured in collaboration with Steinway and Sons (New York). Following a fire in 1928, architects Maritz and Young drew plans for a new storefront and showrooms. The new designs brought St Louis a sophisticated and refined retail ambience of 1920s New York which used architecture as advertisement for merchandise.

In 1928, Aeolian's building at 1004 Olive received a striking new storefront and elaborated interior following extensive damage from a fire on January 3rd of that year. In selecting architects for the renovation, Aeolian turned to the St Louis firm, Maritz and Young, the most sought-after residential designers for St Louis County private places. The architects' experience in drawing plans for finely detailed revival style mansions of the elite well equipped them for the opulent design featured in the Aeolian commission. Following the New York Aeolian Co. tradition of using extravagant display rooms as a marketing tool, Maritz & Young created a lavish showcase for the St. Louis store's many costly pianos and organs. Faced with black marble, the refined storefront design featured an elliptical arch framed in ornamental cast iron. The first floor interior was richly articulated with gilded Wedgewood-style plaster relief work and six floor-to-ceiling mirrors. In downtown St Louis, where many historic first floor interiors have suffered the effects of modernization, Maritz and Young's work on the Aeolian Building is significant as a rare, intact survivor. - NRHP, 18 February 2000