Moir was not merely the developer. He was also a tenant. After constructing the building at 241 North 1st Street in 1893-1894, he set up a bicycle shop on the ground floor, right next door to the Santa Clara Valley Board of Trade, the forerunner of the San Jose Chamber of Commerce. He served as a director of the Board, positioning himself at the intersection of commerce and civic life in a city that was still largely agricultural. Other tenants followed the same pattern, living in the flats above while running businesses below. The building's architect, William D. Van Siclen, was active in San Jose from 1892 to 1900, and the Romanesque detailing on the facade reflects the substantial architectural ambition of both designer and client.

The building's first incarnation as a hotel came under the name Straford Hotel. When the original St. James Hotel elsewhere in the city was razed in the 1930s, the name migrated to Moir's building, and it became known as the St. James Hotel. Through all these changes, one family maintained continuity: the Campens, who have owned the building since 1927. Their nearly century-long stewardship has kept the structure intact through periods when many of downtown San Jose's historic buildings were demolished in the name of urban renewal or simply left to decay.

Downtown San Jose has reinvented itself repeatedly since the 1890s, transforming from an agricultural market town to the self-proclaimed Capital of Silicon Valley. Tech campuses and glass towers have reshaped the skyline. Against this backdrop, the Moir Building's three stories of nineteenth-century brick stand as a reminder that the city had a commercial life long before semiconductors. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and recognized as a San Jose City Landmark, its Romanesque entrance and paired upper-story windows documenting a period when Northern California architecture borrowed liberally from European revival styles.

In 2023, a special-use permit was filed with the City of San Jose to repurpose the Moir Building for a new use that William Moir likely never imagined: a high school. Hillbrook School, a private institution based in Los Gatos, plans to house up to 300 students and 45 staff in the Moir Building and the nearby San Jose Armory building, one block east. The lease runs 25 years. It is a fitting next chapter for a building that has already served as a developer's headquarters, a bicycle shop, a hotel, and a landmark. The Romanesque arches that once welcomed travelers now stand to welcome teenagers, and the brick walls that survived more than a century of earthquakes will absorb the sound of a new generation.