After 40 years in the building that bears his name, attorney John Milliken laughs at the question of why hes still there. Its the natural place for me to be, Milliken said. I feel its almost like a second home. As long as he continues practicing law, the place for him is the distinctive, concrete-and-brick building at the corner of College Street and 11th Avenue with large Ms on the door handles and in the carpet pattern. It was the first building built in Bowling Green for the specific purpose of housing attorneys, Milliken said. The office of Milliken and his partner, James Laramore, is on the top of the four-story building, sharing its 13,000 square feet with insurance agents and mortgage companies. Theyll soon have familiar company downstairs: attorneys W. Currie Milliken and Wesley Milliken, Johns cousins, are moving into the glassed-in front office on the first floor. Milliken Law Firm is already painted on the window. Currie Milliken spent several previous years in the building as a member of the Milliken & Milliken law firm, which also included John and his late brother, G.D. Milliken Jr., John Milliken said. The building at 1039 College St. doesnt resemble those around it, nor many others in Bowling Green. Its stood out since its 1963 construction as a small but fine example of the International style by noted Nashville architect Edwin Keeble. I believe its significant because of the architecture, and because although its only four stories its one of the first high-rise commercial buildings in Bowling Green, said Robin Zeigler, historic preservation planner for Warren County. Its really reflecting the success of Bowling Green in that period. Zeigler researched Keeble and his buildings in the Nashville Public Library, and talked with John Milliken about how Keebles work came to Bowling Green. John and G.D. Millikens father, G.D. Milliken Sr., had a law office in the former Cook building since 1904, where the Presbyterian Churchs Sunday school building now stands next to the Warren County Courthouse, John Milliken said. The brothers sought new offices just a block away, he said. He and I both had it built, John Milliken said. G.D. Milliken Jr. went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville with Keeble, and persuaded him to design a building for them. Keeble got an engineering degree from Vanderbilt in 1924 and an architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1928. He also studied at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in France, Zeigler said. Although Keeble designed many churches and houses in a variety of styles, hes best known for his larger works: several buildings at Vanderbilt and the University of the South, veterans hospitals in Washington, D.C., and Nashville, the federal office building in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and most notably the 1957 Life & Casualty Tower, Nashvilles first skyscraper, she said. The Milliken Building was originally designed on a larger scale, John Milliken said. When we got our design for the building, the architect had designed eight floors, he said. We didnt feel like we were interested in an eight-floor building in the 60s in Bowling Green, Kentucky, so we just built two. But before wed even finished the second floor, we had a tenant that was interested in occupying a third. So we stopped construction, ordered more steel, and added two more floors. It was full almost from the beginning. When many companies that now own local factories came to town, they rented temporary offices in the Milliken Building until their own facilities were built, Milliken said. Bowling Greens Downtown Redevelopment Authority had its office in the Milliken Building before moving to its current office on Fountain Square, said C.J. Johansen, special projects coordinator for the DRA.Bill Perkins Hometown Mortgage office has been in the building for a little more than three years, he said. When an insurance company moved out, Perkins jumped to secure his present office, with its balcony view of the Warren County Justice Center. The minor maintenance problems of an older building are far outweighed for Perkins by its advantages. Its very convenient, of course, to downtown, the post office, the justice center, he said. Mortgage closings are made easier by the buildings proximity to attorneys offices, banks and the Warren County Courthouse. The building was one of the first locally with solid concrete construction, Perkins said, and its material was supplied by the Murphy family, local concrete contractors; the current generation, Mike Murphy, now runs Scott & Murphy contractors. Part of the Milliken Buildings styling includes protruding concrete fins, designed to block afternoon sun, although John Milliken admits that because of the siting of the building they did not really work as intended, Zeigler said. The drum-shaped section with vertical glass-block windows in the front of the building was designed as a law library, and still has a tailor-made conference table, she said. The matching round section at the buildings rear contained the heating and cooling system. The International style was kind of considered ugly a few years ago, and now its starting to come back in style, Johansen said. Keeble and the Millikens collaborated on more local buildings a Gothic one-story building at 1148 College St. and Bowling Green Towers, also in the International style, which was originally intended for college students, Zeigler said. G.D. Milliken owned the building that bears his name until his death a few years ago. I sold my interest to him in the early 90s, John Milliken said. He left it to his three daughters, and they sold it to settle the estate. Louisville businessman Chester Zoeller Jr. bought the building for $400,000 in December 1998, according to Warren County property records. Zoeller is a graduate of Western Kentucky University, his wife, Gayle, said. Hes bought several buildings in Bowling Green in the last several years, expecting that the citys plans to revitalize downtown will attract more business and traffic, she said. The building still has all its original architectural features. Zoeller recently did a major renovation of the facade, fixed the roof, installed new landscaping and redid the parking lot, but kept all the important details intact, Zeigler said. After Zoeller had done all the other work, he received a grant from the Renaissance Kentucky Alliance to restore the concrete ceilings on the buildings balconies, Johansen said.