On a January night 12 years ago, James Thomas Mullane found himself standing in the main hall of I. Magnin on Union Square, taking in the imposing Max Ingrand murals that had adorned the space since 1948, when the store was built.

"I had been standing there for several minutes before I realized that there was no one else left in the store. It was only then that I heard a very exhausted but melancholy employee, who was trying to lock up, say to me, 'You can go now; you are the last customer.' "

Moments later, the lights went out for good. San Francisco's -- and one of the world's -- most glamorous retail stores, first established on Market Street in 1877, shut down after 118 years in business. Nearly half of those years had been at the corner of Geary and Stockton in a building so architecturally impressive it earned the nickname "The Marble Lady."

But Mullane is turning the lights back on -- figuratively speaking -- with a new book that details the history of the once grand store, from its founders and descendants to its salespeople and customers.

"A Store to Remember," published by Falcon Books (144 pages, $50), uses historical photos, old newspaper accounts and interviews with dozens of San Franciscans to tell the story of how the store came to be not only a geographic landmark but a cultural icon, too, for generations of Bay Area residents, some of whom still have the store's signature pink and magenta boxes in their closets.

"I think people historically need to know what that white marble corner is all about," said Mullane, a fourth-generation San Franciscan and historian. "It's still there. It's not I. Magnin, but I sometimes stop and squint and I can still see I. Magnin at the top, where it says Macy's."

It didn't take much to revive the memories at a recent book launch party. Some 260 former employees and a few customers gathered at the Rotunda restaurant at Neiman Marcus and reminisced about good times, from Corliss Fong, who was a vice president at I. Magnin, to Edith Marsh, who worked in special events, to Pam Marota, who ran the liquidation sale, and David Milan and Milton Grace, who toiled in the sub-basement as shipping and receiving clerks.

"It was the epitome of style, class and taste in San Francisco," said Sally Debenham, a Kensington resident who modeled at I. Magnin in the 1960s. "There was an aura about it. When you got a gift from I. Magnin, it was the same thing as getting a Tiffany blue box -- you had a feeling of excitement before you opened it. It promised something splendid, and it usually was."

Chuck Williams, the founder of Williams-Sonoma gourmet stores, also at the party, worked at an I. Magnin branch in Hollywood in 1936, as a shipping and receiving clerk for $48 a month. It was a big job in those days, he said, because he had to pack and send out what the customers had selected and accept back the items they decided they really didn't want. "It was all about service and quality," he said. "That's what I learned at I. Magnin. Marvelous service."

No one at the party was old enough to have remembered Mary Ann Cohen Magnin and her husband, Isaac Magnin, who founded the first I. Magnin store in 1877. It specialized in her handiwork as a seamstress with hand-stitched layettes and diapers made of the finest imported European fabrics and trimmed in lace. She branched out into lingerie and clothing, always with the finest materials, attire that was much in demand by society ladies as well as newly monied dance-hall girls and prostitutes of the Barbary Coast.

Her attention to quality and customer service became I. Magnin hallmarks. There were also magnificent buildings to sell their wares in. Her children inherited that attention to detail when they began working in the business -- Grover, Emanuel John and Joseph. Another son, Victor, the black sheep of the family, struck out on his own in New York and died there in his 20s, Mullane wrote. A split in the family led Joseph to establish his own chain of competing J. Magnin stores, which caused a rift that took decades to mend.

The Magnins built a competitive edge by going to New York and Europe on buying trips to find distinctive apparel long before other department stores came around to the idea. One eye-popping anecdote revolves around an accessories-buying trip to Paris in 1923, in which Grover exceeded his $12,000 budget by a mere $74,000. No matter -- the goods sold and soon he was spending $200,000 a year to stock distinctive purses to sell in the store. It was the first American store to carry Valentino, Givenchy and Ungaro couture, and had an exclusive deal with Norbert Norell, whose line was considered the best American-made clothing at the time.

Originally located on Market, the store moved several times before settling into its grandest digs, the Timothy Pflueger-designed "Marble Lady" at Geary and Stockton streets in 1948.

It was known for its large, spacious salons, where customers sat on couches and saleswomen brought dresses out on hangers or had them shown by models. There were no racks of merchandise to thumb through like today. Socialites came to buy gowns for the opera, sometimes dressed in fur coats and nothing but their slips underneath, all the better to try on the clothing quickly. Customers had accounts, and didn't always have to pay on time -- some of the better customers paid only annually. Some of the most engaging anecdotes about the experience of shopping in the store are drawn from newspaper accounts written by the late Chronicle society columnist Pat Steger.

There were grand marble bathrooms that drew curiosity-seekers, a pneumatic tube system that sent customers' charges to finance (no cash registers!), and an employee lounge and hospital of sorts on the 10th floor.

The store weathered downturns in the economy including the Great Depression and World War II, but not, eventually, modern life. Although I. Magnin & Co. merged with Bullocks in 1944 and prospered, things changed when it became a division of Federated Department stores in 1964. Mullane wrote that the big chain did not understand the salon concept and that executives wanted the same profit margins from a specialty store as from their other department stores. In the end, despite several rescue attempts by various investors, the plug was pulled on Jan. 15, 1995.

Dr. Avraham Giannini, a party guest, wished it hadn't been. "I used to walk by the perfume counter and there was such a glamour," he said, "not only the odor of perfume, but the glamour of the women trying it on, or trying earrings on."

Of the 250 books sold that night, he bought eight to give to friends, to keep I. Magnin's story alive.

"A Store to Remember" is available in San Francisco at Books Inc., Neiman Marcus and The Glass Pheasant.