Author: Marsha Oates

The Paperworks condominiums are an important element in the reemergence of
downtown as a residential community. The former D. Canale warehouse and Tayloe
Paper Company in the South Bluff Warehouse Historic District was adapted for
use as apartments in the 1980s, a bold decision at a time when downtown had
only a couple thousand residents. The apartments are now being converted to
condominiums.

The site has been through several significant development phases in the
past 150 years. It was part of the vast Fort Pickering complex developed by
Union troops beginning in 1862. After the war, the area became a fashionable
residential district extending along Front Street from Beale to Calhoun. When
the Frisco Railroad Bridge was completed in 1892, the South Bluffs became a
bustling retail, wholesale, and warehouse center.

D. Canale & Company was one of several grocery and liquor businesses
started by Italian immigrants in Memphis just after the Civil War. In business
downtown for nearly 50 years, Canale moved to the South Bluffs when it became
a solely wholesale operation. The Canale building on the corner of South Front
Street and Huling Avenue was completed in 1913, the same year Central Station
opened a couple of blocks away on South Main.

The new Canale warehouse was architecturally distinctive, even avant-
garde. Although concrete post-and-beam framing with brick infill was fairly
common for industrial and commercial buildings by 1900, the design of the
Canale building made no attempt to wrap the building with an ornamental skin
of some appropriated historical style. Instead, its structural system was
expressed inside and out, with its only ornamentation the horizontal and
vertical concrete elements, brick panels, and bands of windows. At a time when
neoclassicism and remnants of Victorian excess were all the rage, most people
probably considered the stark building to be purely utilitarian, not really
architecture at all. But bare-bones, minimalist structures such as this were
the genesis of the modern movement and the International Style, which
characterized American and European high-style architecture in the first half
of the 20th century.

The five-story Paperworks building now has offices on the ground floor
and 65 residential units above. Complementing the building’s original design,
the present renovations are minimalist treatments that make no attempt at a
“retro” or pseudo-historical look. In the lobby, the mail boxes are
screened by a diaphanous curve of frosted glass, and a small, Zen-inspired
garden has been installed at the base of the building’s light well near the
elevator.

The seven floor plans all have a kitchen-bath-storage core and a laundry
room. In some units, the kitchen is near the entry; in others, it is near the
center. All of the units have “open” floor plans, with spaces
undifferentiated by walls, a concept offering almost endless space usage and
furniture arrangements. The exposed-brick panels and glazed concrete floors
make a surprisingly nesutral background for antiques as well as contemporary
furniture and classic modern pieces.

These condominiums in the middle of the thriving South Main arts district
aren’t just urban lofts — they’re urbane environments.

408 South Front Street

65 loft units, 700-1,400 square feet

$83,500-$209,000

Henry Turley Realtors, Agents: Annette Sharp and Lori Sharp, 521-1593

The East Buntyn Historic District, near the University of Memphis, was once part of a cotton plantation, a quarter of which awarded to Geraldus Buntyn for his service in the War of 1812. After Buntyn’s death, developers registered the Buntyn Subdivision with the county tax office in 1868. Several new streets were installed in the early 1900s, but major construction didn’t begin until the 1920s, after city utilities had been extended to the subdivision. Many prospective residents were attracted to the area by its proximity to the Memphis Country Club, which had purchased Buntyn’s Greek Revival house and rebuilt on the same site after the house burned in 1910. The Normal School, the state teachers’ college, was also in the neighborhood.

This house, built around 1925, started out as a yellow-brick, Mission-style, “airplane” bungalow facing Reese Street and set far back. In the 1950s, the large lot was subdivided and a new house was built in the original front yard. The existing house was substantially altered inside and out, no doubt in an effort to “modernize” it and create a more open plan in keeping with popular architectural trends of the time. The main axis of the house shifted 90 degrees: The entrance moved from the narrow Reese Street façade to the long side on Southern Avenue. Shifting the entrance allowed major interior changes. The house’s typical bungalow plan — entry/living room, dining room, and kitchen running from front to back along one side with a central hall, bedrooms, and bath on the other side — was transformed into a ranch-house plan, the dominant residential style of the 1950s and ’60s, with its living and dining rooms and kitchen in the front and bedrooms and bath in the back. The original living room became a pine-paneled den with a big brick fireplace; a wall was removed between the original dining and breakfast rooms to create a combined living and dining room. The front and side porches were paved with yellow bricks removed from the first-floor parapet wall. At some time, the house was painted white, giving it a capital-M Modern (bordering on International style) appearance.

The second-floor “airplane” (given that name presumably because it has a panoramic view) has two bedrooms, each with high windows on three sides and a deep closet, which could be reconfigured to make room for at least a half bath.

The kitchen is big, with varnished wood cabinets, a pantry, room for a table and chairs, and the same hardwood floors as in the adjacent rooms. The kitchen could be easily updated a bit by recessing the refrigerator in the pantry, painting the cabinets, and replacing the table and chairs with a big work island with seating along one side.

Calling the ground floor of this house a basement doesn’t do it justice. It’s a full, walk-out basement, the same size as the first floor, and has several rooms, a master-quality bath and dressing room, and a laundry in a vast walk-in closet. Installing French doors to connect the area with the rear garden would make this an especially appealing part of the house.

Whether you’re looking for a move-in ready ’50s-chic house or feel like restoring some of the Craftsman bungalow elements, this house offers lots of livability and myriad arrangements and uses for its many capacious rooms.

3342 Southern Avenue

1,900 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths; $114,000

Heritage Homes Co., Jennifer Parker, agent, 755-2000, 452-8061

A cluster of two-story stucco apartments perched on a terrace above McLean Boulevard is in the midst of a transformation into a planned development of six elegant townhouses. The property was once part of the Roynan Farm in the late 19th century. Sometime in the early 20th century, the owner remodeled an existing house on the farm, modernizing it in the Craftsman style. According to local lore, the owner visited either the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco or the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, both held in 1915. Greatly influenced by the many examples of Spanish Colonial architecture featured at the expos, he remodeled the house again, this time dividing it into a duplex and building two new apartment blocks in front of it, each with stucco exteriors, tile roofs, arched windows and doors, and wrought-iron details — all emblematic elements of the Spanish Colonial Revival or Mission style.

The work now underway retains the historic aura of the buildings while adding contemporary amenities to each unit, such as a renovated kitchen and a new half-bath on the first floor, tucked under the stairway in most cases. Because the six townhouses will be finished to suit their new owners, they can have unique floor plans as well as distinctive interior finishes and fixtures.

Each of the four units in the two front buildings has a large, bright living room with a corner fireplace, a dining room, and a separate breakfast room adjoining the kitchen, which has both its original built-in china cupboard as well as new cabinetry and countertops. Upstairs, three bedrooms offer the possibility of a variety of uses as sleeping quarters, den, or home office. The front bedroom extends across the full width of the unit and could serve as both bedroom and sitting room. Its French doors open to an iron railing which gives the impression of being a balcony. The upstairs bath has its original tub and medicine cabinet; retro-styled fixtures and black-and-white ceramic floor tiles complement the 1920s look. The former linen closet just outside the bath has been converted to a laundry area. The two townhouses in the rear building have differing floor plans, but each has a living room, dining room, and kitchen on the ground floor and two bedrooms and a sun porch on the second floor.

A secluded central courtyard is enclosed by stucco walls on two sides and an iron fence across the front. A vintage birdbath and a new pond with a burbling fountain add visual and auditory accents to the space. A gated driveway encircles the buildings, and parking sheds for each resident open off the drive. Additional resident and guest parking is also provided inside the gated area. Each unit has a secure storage area in the basement of the two front buildings and in rear sheds for the back units.

Swoopy canvas awnings suspended from angle-iron spears cover all the front entrances and the French doors on the second floors. Similar awnings were original to the buildings but have long since disappeared. The sockets for the poles were still in place, and after the current owner found various parts of the awning supports in the basement, he decided to restore them. The awnings also serve as jaunty flags signaling that these former apartments, once anomalies among the large single-family houses, are now six distinctive homes in the heart of Central Gardens.

McLean Place

2 units: 1,400 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths

$180,000 to $230,000 (depending upon allowances) Tom Edwards, 888-6683

Memphis architects Walk Jones Sr. and Max H. Furbringer produced
some of the city’s finest early 20th-century houses. They designed this
house, Hillcrest, for Mrs. Walter Goodman and Mrs. J.M. Richardson, a widow
and her widowed daughter. The Goodman family had owned the Mississippi Central
Railroad and operated a major cotton plantation near Southaven.

The design of Hillcrest skillfully combines elements of the
Colonial Revival and French Renaissance Revival. The facade, with its elegant
blend of stonework patterns and textures, gives the impression of two
townhouses joined by a central entrance bay, a characteristic often found in
French and English country houses. The porch has turned stone balusters in the
Colonial Revival style; the open terraces at either end of the porch have
rectangular stone-block balusters often found on Craftsman houses.

Hillcrest has an unusual floor plan for the period: Its front
door opens into an entrance hall, but the “public” rooms of the
first floor are not immediately accessible from the hall. Instead, the
entrance hall leads to a cross-hall opening to the monumental main stair,
which is on axis with the entrance. The major rooms open off the cross hall,
instead of being connected. This arrangement provides a strong sense of
privacy and separation from the entrance, even though the public rooms are at
the front of the house.

In a display of technical virtuosity, Jones and Furbringer used a
different architectural style for each of the major areas on the first floor.
A screen of fluted columns with Italian Renaissance-inspired Scamozzi capitals
marks the entrance to the cross hall, where the stair is framed by tall,
French Renaissance Revival newels. The stair also has a full-width banquette
at its landing and a dazzling two-story window wall of leaded stained
glass.

The east room, known as the men’s parlor, is detailed in the
English Arts and Crafts style and dominated by an extraordinary fireplace
inset with peacock-blue tiles. Beyond the men’s parlor is a small suite,
originally used as Mrs. Goodman’s bedroom and bath, decorated in the
Colonial Revival style, which would serve equally well as either a family
room, guest suite, or first-floor master suite.

The ladies’ parlor to the west of the entrance has delicate
plaster panels and pilasters, deep cornices, and a commanding mantelpiece
detailed with both Colonial Revival and French Renaissance Revival elements.
The “tapestry room,” adjacent to the ladies’ parlor and
originally used as the dining room, has a coffered ceiling and European
tapestry wall panels original to the house.

The kitchen borders on being institutional both in size and
equipment, with commercial appliances that could handle any sort of
entertaining event. Not that the kitchen needs enlarging, but opening the
kitchen to the back porch would provide a small, informal dining area with a
view to the back garden. A butler’s pantry adjacent to the kitchen has
its original floor-to-ceiling cupboards which could easily hold tableware in
the “service for 200” category.

The second floor has five bedrooms and three baths, all large and
elegantly appointed with their original fixtures. The master bedroom has a
Colonial Revival fireplace and a wall of built-in cupboards, and its adjoining
bath has a delightfully odd radiator with towel-warmer shelves. A suite on the
third floor could be a den, media room, or governess’ quarters.

The house is on a one-acre corner lot enclosed by a brick wall.
The house and garage are on the west side of the lot, leaving the east for
development as pool, tennis courts, or gardens. Hillcrest has been
meticulously preserved and is ready to provide the setting for another century
of elegant living on a grand scale.

1554 Peabody Avenue

House: 7,300 square feet

5 bedrooms, 5 1/2 baths

Backhouse/garage: 1,200 square feet

1 bedroom, 1 bath

$775,000

Realtor: The Hobson Company

272-2619, 761-1622

Memphis has about 12,000 buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places and about 7,000 of them are bungalows. Most American bungalows were built in the early 20th century, but the bungalow has a long history closely tied to the global influence of the British empire.

The word “bungalow” comes from the Bengali bangala, which refers to both the Bengal region of India and the area’s native houses, one-story buildings with a porch or “verandah,” probably a Persian word. The imperialists and entrepreneurs who went to India devised many variations on the bangala, incorporating characteristics of English cottages and the conveniences of Western civilization, as well as the British army tent. The resulting bungalows usually had a central living room and an aura of openness created by banks of windows and many exterior doors which opened to porches almost entirely surrounding the core rooms.

The European and American bungalows that developed over the next century were eclectic creatures, idealized retreats set in a garden and associated with a return to the simple life. In many former colonial territories, “bungalow” still refers to a building in a private compound.

This bungalow, mid-block on a shady stretch of Willett between Poplar and Court, embodies many characteristics of earlier Anglo-Indian bungalows. Unlike most American bungalows, it has a symmetrical façade. A prominent gable with Craftsman brackets covers the broad front porch. The central front door has a distinctive transom with thin, horizontal panes. The door opens into a hall, in the medieval sense of entrance room and multipurpose space. Originally the living room, it could serve equally well as the dining room or as a parlor with a couple of easy chairs pulled up to the Colonial Revival fireplace. Doors from this room lead to the kitchen, the back hall, and a large adjoining room, which could be either the living or dining room.

The kitchen has been refurbished with new cupboards and commercial-style appliances. Its arrangement, with an island at the center and a wide-cased opening to the breakfast room, encourages congregating while providing efficient work areas. The breakfast room has double windows and its original glass-doored china cabinet. The original walk-in pantry has been modified to also serve as a laundry.

A vestibule off the kitchen has doors to the basement and the huge, screened back porch, which, like most of the other rooms, has a ceiling fan. One of the two downstairs bedrooms has a French door to the porch. The downstairs bath retains its original hexagonal-tile floor, linen closet with full-height double doors, and classic dish-base tub. The Craftsman-detailed stair in the back hall has pyramid-capped newels and block-spindle balusters.

The upstairs room has four pairs of casement windows facing east and a pair of double-hung windows on the south side. It has a full bath and two large closets. Deciding whether to use it as master bedroom, home office, or summer parlor would be a tough call.

All the rooms have the same period-appropriate color scheme — straw, sage, putty — that imparts a soothing glow. Floors in the living/dining area and the downstairs bedrooms were hand-sanded and have a dark, rich finish. The kitchen, breakfast room, and upstairs floors are painted a light khaki, a traditional country house treatment.

The backyard, shaded by a grove of pecan trees, is enclosed by a high fence with an automatic gate. A new tin-roofed storage shed contributes to the colonial compound feel of this sensitively rehabilitated enclave in the heart of Midtown.

152 N. Willett

1,800 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths; $168,500, FSBO: 237-4975, 525-3044

Belvedere means “beautiful view” in Italian. With its gentle S-curve and wide, landscaped median, Belvedere Boulevard is most appropriately named. The Belvedere subdivision, one of several comprising present-day Central Gardens, was approved for development in 1906. The land was part of an 800-acre farm established by Solomon Rozelle in 1830. When the subdivision was platted, the area had a few houses dating from the mid- to late 1800s. Most of the houses in the new development were built between 1900 and 1940; a few townhouses were built in the 1960s and ’70s.

This is the first new house in the neighborhood in several decades and is now under construction on Belvedere between Harbert and Glenwood, on property that was for many years the garden of the circa-1912 house next door. The deep, narrow lot has been developed with a small lawn and guest parking in the front, a driveway down the house’s south side, and parking for the owners at the rear, behind the garage.

The brick-clad house has a symmetrical facade with a two-story pedimented portico which provides a gracious porch at street level and a balcony for two bedrooms upstairs. The front entrance is a double-leaf door with a transom. The front windows also have transoms.

The central front hall has a view straight through the house to the rear terrace and courtyard. The living and dining rooms, each with a fireplace, flank the front hall. The den, behind the living room, has its own fireplace and a trio of French doors to the terrace. A wide archway joins the den to the breakfast room, which is almost as large as the dining room. A butler’s pantry with capacious cabinets connects breakfast and dining rooms.

The kitchen and its adjunct spaces and the downstairs master suite are in a long, one-story rear ell. The kitchen, with major work areas at the sink and stove and broad expanses of countertop, would easily accommodate the needs of either an amateur cook or a professional chef. A counter with columns at its corners is both a convenient work or serving space as well as an elegant device to separate the kitchen and breakfast room. A four-foot-wide refrigerator and walk-in pantry provide plenty of food and equipment storage; and there’s more storage, as well as a place for a freezer, in the laundry room. A porte cochère on the south side of the house provides a convenient, sheltered, family entrance and loading zone off the back hall.

A gallery stretches down one side of the ell, forming the long side of the courtyard. The master bedroom with a bay window and expansive bath and dressing areas is situated at the end of the gallery. A three-car garage with a bedroom/playroom and full bath upstairs forms the end wall of the courtyard, an area that could be developed as a garden or an outdoor room that is a visual and functional extension of the interior spaces.

The upstairs has four bedrooms, all with nine-foot ceilings. Each bedroom has a large walk-in closet. The two front bedrooms have access to the balcony, and the two back bedrooms open into a sitting room. One front bedroom and one back bedroom have full baths; each of the other bedrooms has a private vanity but share a tub and water closet.

The design of this house incorporates modern “bells and whistles” conveniences with many desirable amenities, such as large rooms and high ceilings, found in older houses in Central Gardens. It won’t be long before this elegant Colonial Revival blends seamlessly with the other distinctive houses along one of Memphis’ most notable streetscapes.

656 Belvedere Boulevard, 5,500 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths; $1,200,000

Realtor: Sowell and Company, Agent: Corinne Adrian, 278-4380, 278-8840

If you can’t follow Robert Browning’s advice to “be in England, Now that April’s there,” you might try a leisurely drive through Hein Park, which at this time of year is much like an English village with its winding lanes and meadow-like green expanses. The area was originally a dairy farm, part of which was sold for the campus of Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College). In 1923, the Hein, Mette, and Gerber families, who owned the Memphis Steam Laundry and the John Gerber Department Store, began selling lots subdivided from the property. They called the area Hein Park and wanted the development to have a broad socioeconomic mix. Lots sold from $500 to $16,000, and houses ranged from cottages to mansions.

Hein Park was one of many streetcar suburbs developed within or adjacent to the Parkways during the early 1900s, but its curving streets and deep front yards distinguished it from most other subdivisions with grids and houses set close to the street. Its design is a fine example of the City Beautiful movement, which was greatly influenced by the 18th-century English Romantic and Picturesque landscape movements. While there is a great variety of architectural styles in Hein Park, the Tudor Revival is predominant.

This Tudor Revival cottage has all the hallmarks of the style: a multitude of steep gable roofs, a prominent chimney, half-timbering, groups of small-paned windows, and masonry walls, in this case stone and stucco. The front door, made of stout boards bound by heavy strap hinges, looks like the entrance to a medieval fortress. The entry hall has a coat closet with a diamond-paned slit window through which you can see the porch and front yard. One end of the large living room is entirely open to a sunroom with French doors that lead to a side garden and patio.

The living and dining rooms are joined by a wide archway. Off the dining room is an unusually large breakfast room which has its original built-in china cupboard. The breakfast room, kitchen, and front entry have quarry tile floors. The kitchen has lots of cabinets as well as a pantry. The work areas are perfectly adequate, but the space could be easily expanded by combining the kitchen and its adjoining utility room/back-entrance hall. Remodeling to convert a back bedroom to a family room connected to the kitchen would create a “great room” with access to the pool terrace.

A long, wide hallway runs through the center of the house. Three bedrooms, the kitchen, a bath, and the stairs to the finished attic are ranged along the hall. The house still has many of its original details, including a tiny telephone niche and radiator covers with a faux bois finish to match the red-gum woodwork.

The original master bedroom downstairs has two sets of corner windows overlooking the back garden and pool terrace. It also has its own bath. A second master suite upstairs has a huge, sky-lit bath and a series of spaces which could be used as bedrooms, home office, or walk-in closets and dressing rooms.

The deep lot is not immense, but it has been intensively developed. The front lawn is a lush swath of green leading to the broad, open front porch. The foundation plantings around the porch spill out to the side yards. One side has the driveway; the other has a path that leads around to a garden that runs the length of the house and connects to the pool terrace, a fenced area that is surrounded by dense shrubs and specimen plants. The pool house forms one end of the pool terrace and adjoins the garage. This truly charming cottage is one of the reasons why Hein Park is one of Memphis’ great neighborhoods. n

685 Cypress Drive

3,300 square feet

4 bedrooms, 3 baths; $285,000

Agent: Susan Overton

Realtor: Re/Max Elite of Memphis

Agent: B.J. Worthy

685-6000, 754-5177

During the first quarter of the 20th century, America was swept up in a veritable bungalow craze. Advertised as “simple but artistic homes” for people of modest means, bungalows could be built for $500 to $5,000, affordable for a broad segment of the population. This type of single-family house with its own lawn offered style, convenience, and respectability — the fulfillment of the American dream. Bungalows and the bungalow lifestyle were zealously promoted in The Ladies Home Journal, Gustav Stickley’s Craftsman, and Bungalow Magazine. These publications included plans, elevations, details, and advice on appropriate gardens and interior decoration. They also featured poems and songs, including (really, I’m not making this up) “In the Land of the Bungalow” and a waltz, “Bungalow Love-Nest,” extolling the pleasures and benefits of life in a bungalow.

Memphis, like many other American towns that boomed in the early 20th century, has acres of bungalows, most of them built to accommodate the burgeoning middle-class population. This stone and stucco house on Linden, in the area once known as the Town of Idlewild, is a bungalow to sing about. At some time it was divided into three apartments, but it has now been sensitively restored as a single-family house. A deep porch with stone piers and a closed stone balustrade provides an outdoor living room that is somewhat screened from view. Unlike many bungalows, this one has a symmetrical facade with the front door in the center and banks of triple windows to either side. The front door has a grid of beveled-glass lights in its upper portion and is original to the house. A broad shed dormer is centered above the door.

The living and dining rooms occupy the entire front of the house. A sense of foyer is created by a columnar screen with box piers that separates the entry area from the dining room. Both rooms have robust box beams on the ceiling. The breakfast room between the dining room and kitchen has a bay window with leaded diamond panes and still has its original built-in cupboard. The original hardware found throughout the first floor, such as sash-lifters, door escutcheons, and bin pulls on the breakfast-room cabinet, is copper — a quintessential Craftsman material that seldom survives.

The kitchen has been completely remodeled and has all new cabinets and appliances. A laundry room was added off the kitchen. A former bedroom had a wall removed, opening it to the kitchen and creating a den with a new corner fireplace. A broad deck connects an addition similar to the laundry room on the other side of the house, reflecting the symmetry of the front facade and providing space for a full bath with a whirlpool tub, a separate shower, and a linen closet. This new bath adjoins the downstairs master bedroom.

The stair to the second floor is under a broad arch opposite the front door in a cross hall in the middle of the house. The original bathroom, with claw-foot tub and pedestal lavatory, is at the end of the hall.

The second floor has a long hallway with numerous closets and enough room for a study or seating area at one end. The three bedrooms and a full bath are all large and pleasantly bright, but the prime space is definitely the center room with its five dormer windows. Each bedroom has plenty of closet space, not the usual walk-in closets but something more like “wander-around-in” closets with cavernous, irregular spaces formed by the odd nooks and crannies of the attic.

This restored bungalow is a great example of the houses that inspired such a devoted following in the early 20th century and are now enjoying a strong revival.

1959 Linden Avenue

2,700 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 baths; $234,900

Agent: Susan Overton, Realtor: The Neilson Group, 818-3230