Chatsworth Apartments

The Chatsworth Apartment building is significant for two reasons. First, architecturally, it is a model and unaltered example of the skillful use of Italian Renaissance styling on the high-rise apartments of the 1920s. In the context of the University-Cultural Center (UCC), the design of the Chatsworth matches the Italian Romanesque/Renaissance architecture of other important buildings constructed in the 1920s: the Detroit Public Library (completed in 1921), the Detroit Institute of Arts (finished in 1927), and such neighboring apartment buildings as The Wardell (1926; since 1952, the Park Shelton), the Art Centre (1926), and the Belcrest (1927). The Library, Institute of Arts, and the Belcrest are all on the National Register. Webster Hall at Cass and Putnam, built in 1924 (and now Mackenzie Hall), was nominated in the Phase I document. In style and integrity, the Chatsworth is among the major buildings and monuments from the 1920s that give the UCC its special architectural identity in Detroit. Secondly, the Chatsworth is important in the history of the development of carefully designed, attractive, multi-unit, middle-class housing in Detroit in the early 20th century. Since the luxury flats of the mid-1890s (such as the Verona and Coronado), sufficient numbers of middle-class Detroiters grew accustomed to apartment living to help fuel the building boom of the 1920s. In a city of predominantly single-family, detached homes, some middle-class Detroiters demanded the convenience and comfort of apartment life. And during the 1920s, an ideal location to build luxury apartments was in the UCC. Long a geographical portion of the native-born American, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant corridor along Woodward Avenue, the UCC by the 1920s began to acquire major institutions of learning and the arts. This in turn made the UCC attractive for developers and designers of a new generation of apartment buildings: the 9-to-12 story high-rises. The Chatsworth (like the Belcrest at 5440 Cass which is already on the National Register), thus, is an appropriate symbol of the social and economic factors (discussed at much greater length in the Historical Overview, pages 13:;Z( that coalesced and produced the first fashionable high-rise apartment buildings in the history of Detroit.

On January 25, 1928, T. F. Norris Company, realtors, took out a permit to build the Chatsworth Apartments upon a rectangular lot on the north side of Merrick, just west of Second. The original drawings for the 9-story, 87-unit, tan-colored, Italian Renaissance-styled apartment building were dated November, 1927. Designed by architects Pollmar, Ropes & Lundy, the steel, reinforced-concrete, brick-and-tile Chatsworth comprised 1.33 million cubic feet of space and was built at an estimated cost in 1928 of $560,000. The Chatsworth also featured a below-ground, 65-car capacity, parking garage--an uncommon service for a mid-1920s apartment building. It connects with the Chatsworth through the latter's basement. The building remains substantially unaltered in plan and appearance. The single-story main entrance to the Chatsworth is on the west side, near the 90 degree angle formed by the L-shape plan of the structure. A portico with a segmental-arch roof covers the double-door entrance. The doors and their surrounds are dark-stained wood with clear, leaded glass. On either side appear large, square piers with Corinthian tops. Inset on the front and sides of the piers are decorative reliefs and metal-bracketed light fixtures. A similar but smaller door stands immediately to the right of the main entryway. From the outside, the Chatsworth resembles a large column: floors 1 and 2 comprise the base, stories 3 through 8 the body, and the 9th floor and roof line as the entablature. This kind of composition contributes to the strong vertical character of the building, as do the three projecting bay sections which rise from the ground level to the top of the structure, culminating in roof-level parapets. The most pronounced and elaborately treated of these bays is the one fronting Merrick. Indeed, the narrow Merrick facade is the most highly decorated one of the Chatsworth. Decorative work on the symmetrically composed Merrick side--which for the first two floors include ground-level, white stone; orangish tiles; ballustraded second-story windows; surface columns with shield reliefs at the top; and a clearly defined bracketed cornice above the second floor--continue horizontally for a short distance along the east and west sides and then end abruptly. On the other hand, three cornices above the eighth floor continue the entire length of the east and west sides. This includes the distinctive yet simple cornice made of orangish brick between the eighth and ninth stories. Vertically, the Merrick facade is composed of three sections which, from the third through eighth floors, stand out as columns made with the same composition of brownish bricks that is used as the principal facade covering. The three sections are: the central bay portion featuring two windows per floor, but which are separated by a narrow column; and flanking double-window side sections. (Other windows of the building alternate between single and double-window plans.) Orangish tiles occupy the space in between each story of windows. Flattened Gothic-shaped arches appear above the ninth-story windows. They also encase the second-story windows (and appear at the top of the two parapets on the west side of the building). Within the Chatsworth, floors 3 through 9 typically contain 10 living units of varying size. The standard layout for each unit is a living room (approximately 13 feet x 20 feet), a dining area (8.5 feet x 10 feet), a kitchen approximating the size of the dining area, a bedroom (11 feet x 16 feet), a bathroom and ample closets. Bedroom, kitchen, and dining areas vary considerably in size between units, depending upon location of the suite on the floor plan. Since 1961, the 87-unit Chatsworth has been owned by Wayne State University and is reserved for the housing needs of University faculty, staff, and employees.