Shortly after the fire of August, 1857, three Frenchmen—L. Claverie, Charles Meysan, and Victor Pinchard—built this one-story brick structure. After their partnership dissolved in 1861, Meysan owned the building until 1869, when he sold it to Sun Lun Sing and it became known as “The Old China Store.” This formerly French section of town became a predominantly Chinese area, and by the mid-1870s a Joss House and Chinese theater adjoined the Claverie Building.