to design the Greystone Cellars, along with Italian stonemasons to build the façades, and the Ernest L. Ransome firm to handle concrete work. The plans involved the use of new materials and technology of the time, including the relatively new Portland cement. The cement was used as mortar and also poured over the iron reinforcing rods built within the first and second floor elevations. The heavy timber construction of the third floor provided structural support for not only that floor's cask, barrel and bottle aging space but also for the gravity-flow crushing area located on the floor above. The architects planned for the cellars to hold two million gallons of wine at a time, with thirteen tunnels in the hillside behind the building to hold another million gallons. Those tunnels collapsed due to effects of water seepage and of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. A large number of men were hired for the building's construction, and local workers were chosen over non-locals. During the construction, many of the workers lived in tents beside their worksite, and cooked meals and stayed there when not working. The cornerstone was laid on June 15, 1888; beneath it was laid several bottles of wine, a copy of a St. Helena Star and San Francisco newspapers, and foreign and rare coins. The building, called the Bourn & Wise Wine Cellar, was completed around June 1889, along with a distillery north of the building and a superintendent's house to the south. In September of that year Everett Wise became too ill to work and sold his share in the winery to Bourn, who between that time and 1890 named the winery Greystone Cellars. The building cost $250,000 ($ in ). At its completion, architect George Percy described Greystone Cellars as the largest wine cellar in California, if not the world. Greystone was also the first California winery to be operated and illuminated by electricity, produced by a boiler and gas generator located in a mechanical room below the building's central front wing. In the spring of 1894, a long-lasting phylloxera scourge made Bourn decide the winery was no longer profitable. Subsequent uses He sold the building at a low price that year, to Charles Carpy, who deeded the property to the California Wine Association. The association continued using the Greystone Cellars wine label. A year later, the Bisceglia brothers of San Jose purchased Greystone where they