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F.M. White made his way to California in the mid-1880s from his hometown of Derby, England. In 1889, the architect was summoned north to design the interior of Portland’s First Presbyterian Church. Upon the church’s completion in 1892, the Portland press showered the building with acclaim noting that it “shows an unusual blending of dignity, peace and common sense.” White went on to create the interior design for San Francisco’s Hotel St. Francis in 1904. The design included a formal ballroom that featured a ball-bearing and rocker “floating dance floor.”

Montrose Ringler experienced St. Francis’ floor in 1911 and was so taken by the floating sensation that he included the same patented design in his new project in Portland: Cotillion Hall (later the Crystal Ballroom) opened at SW 14th and Burnside in 1914.

Ringler was the driving force behind Cotillion Hall’s success in its first seven years. On more than one occasion, he traveled east to learn the new Jazz Age dance moves and bring them back to Portland via Ringler’s Dancing Academy and the dances held at Cotillion Hall. These moves were often sexually suggestive, and Portland’s conservative crowd saw Ringler’s events as dangerous places for young men and women to socialize. This put him at odds with the head of the Women’s Protective Division of the Portland Police Lola Baldwin.

In Kolieeiha’s painting, White and Ringler toast each other’s accomplishments from their positions atop the Flatiron Building that White designed in 1916. The design features included on the left side of the panel and the wording across the bottom are taken from the patent for the floating dance floor awarded to White on August 8, 1905. The dancers at Ringler’s feet are inspired by the figures that appeared in advertisements for Ringlers Dancing Academy in the Oregonian in the late 1910s. The coffee shop and automobile tire showroom on the ground floor represent two of the many businesses that operated out of the Flatiron Building over the years. Ringlers Annex (known today as The Annex) opened in the historic building in 1996 shortly before the opening of Ringlers Pub and Crystal Ballroom the next year on West Burnside in Downtown Portland.