Commodore Apartment Building (Louisville, Kentucky)

Last updated
Commodore Apartment Building
FrontExt3.jpg
Front entrance
USA Kentucky location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location Bonnycastle
Louisville, Kentucky
Coordinates 38°13′57.5″N85°42′2.5″W / 38.232639°N 85.700694°W / 38.232639; -85.700694
Built1929
ArchitectJoseph & Joseph
Architectural styleLate 19th And 20th Century Revival
NRHP reference No. 82002709 [1]
Added to NRHPApril 29, 1982

The Commodore Apartment Building, also called Commodore Apartments, is a luxury condominium complex located in Louisville, Kentucky's Bonnycastle neighborhood. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [1]

Contents

History

Front brass and stain-glassed entryway. FrontExt1.jpg
Front brass and stain-glassed entryway.

The 11-story 120 ft (37 m) high rise Commodore Apartment Building was opened in 1929 and designed by the architectural firm of Joseph & Joseph in 1928. [2] The architects designed four other buildings in the Louisville area including the Republic Building (1916) and the Elsby (1918) in New Albany, Indiana. [3] The building is located near Cherokee Park.

The building is built on land that was once owned by Isaac Everett, one of the founders of the Galt House. [4] Everett purchased about 150 acres (0.61 km2) of land for $25,000 dollars (USD). The land then was used to build himself a mansion. The estate passed down to his daughter Harriet, who later married and became Harriet Bonnycastle. After her husband's death, she donated land to Louisville to build Cherokee Park to spur future developments in 1891. [4] Harriet would sell parcels of land for over the next twenty years and eventually in the late 1920s the Commodore Apartments went up.

After surviving the Great Depression, and continuing as a luxury apartment building, it was sold for $650,000 and restored for another $125,000 in 1978 by Louisville native, actor and entrepreneur Roger Davis. [5] Davis sold the Commodore in 1980 for $1,000,000 to Jack MacDonald of Acre Realty, Chicago [6] which converted the Commodore from an apartment building to a condominium complex of 59 units.

The building's passenger elevators are among the few remaining that require an elevator operator. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 29, 1982.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cherokee Park</span> Municipal park in Louisville, KY, US

Cherokee Park is a 409-acre (166 ha) municipal park located in Louisville, Kentucky, United States and is part of the Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy. It was designed in 1891 by Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of landscape architecture along with 18 of Louisville's 123 parks. Beargrass Creek runs through much of the park, and is crossed by numerous pedestrian and automobile bridges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Louisville</span> United States historic place

Old Louisville is a historic district and neighborhood in central Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It is the third largest such district in the United States, and the largest preservation district featuring almost entirely Victorian architecture. It is also unique in that a majority of its structures are made of brick, and the neighborhood contains the highest concentration of residential homes with stained glass windows in the U.S. Many of the buildings are in the Victorian-era styles of Romanesque, Queen Anne, Italianate, among others; and many blocks have had few or no buildings razed. There are also several 20th-century buildings from 15 to 20 stories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carew Tower</span> 49-story Art Deco building in Cincinnati, US

Carew Tower is a 49-story, 574-foot (175 m) Art Deco building completed in 1930 in the heart of downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, overlooking the Ohio River waterfront. The structure is the second-tallest building in the city, and it was added to the register of National Historic Landmarks on April 19, 1994. The tower is named after Joseph T. Carew, proprietor of the Mabley & Carew department store chain, which had previously operated in a building on the site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Downtown Louisville</span>

Downtown Louisville is the largest central business district in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the urban hub of the Louisville, Kentucky Metropolitan Area. Its boundaries are the Ohio River to the north, Hancock Street to the east, York and Jacob Streets to the south, and 9th Street to the west. As of 2015, the population of Downtown Louisville was 4,700, although this does not include directly surrounding areas such as Old Louisville, Butchertown, NuLu, and Phoenix Hill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Butchertown, Louisville</span> United States historic place

Butchertown is a neighborhood just east of downtown Louisville, Kentucky, United States, bounded by I-65, Main Street, I-71, Beargrass Creek and Mellwood Avenue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bonnycastle, Louisville</span> Neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky

Bonnycastle is a neighborhood four miles (6 km) southeast of downtown Louisville, Kentucky USA. It is considered a part of a larger area of Louisville called The Highlands. Its boundaries are Bardstown Road, Cherokee Road, Eastern Parkway and Speed Avenue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Highlands, Louisville</span>

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brittany Apartment Building</span> United States historic place

The Brittany Apartment Building is a historic apartment building in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. A Queen Anne structure constructed in 1885, it is a six-story rectangular structure with a flat roof, built with brick walls and elements of wood and sandstone. It was built by the firm of Thomas Emery's Sons, Cincinnati's leading real estate developers during the 1880s. It is one of four large apartment complexes erected by the Emerys during the 1880s; only the Brittany and the Lombardy Apartment Buildings have endured to the present day. Both the Lombardy and the Brittany were built in 1885 according to designs by Samuel Hannaford; at that time, his independent architectural practice was gaining great prominence in the Cincinnati metropolitan area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cityscape of Louisville, Kentucky</span>

Louisville, Kentucky is home to numerous structures that are noteworthy due to their architectural characteristics or historic associations, the most noteworthy being the Old Louisville neighborhood, the third largest historic preservation district in the United States. The city also boasts the postmodern Humana Building and an expanding Waterfront Park which has served to remove the former industrial appearance of the riverfront.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schuster Building</span> United States historic place

The Schuster Building is a mixed-use structure at the intersection of Bardstown Road and Eastern Parkway in the Highlands area of Louisville, Kentucky. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 as a "significant example" of Colonial Revival architecture as applied to commercial buildings, the Schuster building is one of Louisville's most prominent examples of that style.

The Temple - Congregation Adath Israel Brith Sholom is a Reform synagogue located in Louisville, Kentucky. Originally the Adath Israel Temple, it adopted its current name following a merger, but is more commonly known by the informal name The Temple. Prior to merging, the congregations resided in several buildings, with the Adath Israel Temple's third synagogue listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rossmore Apartment House</span> United States historic place

The Rossmore Apartment House is a demolished historic building in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sedgwick Gardens</span> United States historic place

Sedgwick Gardens, located at 3726 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, is an apartment building on the southwest corner of Connecticut Avenue and Sedgwick Street in Northwest Washington D.C. It is located two blocks from the Cleveland Park Metro. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and represents a significant example of an Art Deco porte-cochere architecture in Washington.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rookwood Pottery Company</span> United States historic place

Rookwood Pottery is an American ceramics company that was founded in 1880 and closed in 1967, before being revived in 2004. It was initially located in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, and has now returned there. In its heyday from about 1890 to the 1929 Crash, it was an important manufacturer, mostly of decorative American art pottery made in several fashionable styles and types of pieces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cherokee Triangle, Louisville</span> United States historic place

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph & Joseph</span>

Joseph & Joseph is an architectural firm founded in 1908 in Louisville, Kentucky. The main services include architectural, engineering and design projects.

This is a list of properties and historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in The Highlands, Louisville, Kentucky. The table below includes 30 listings in the following neighborhoods:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reid House (Atlanta, Georgia)</span> United States historic place

The Reid House at 1325-1327 Peachtree St., NE, in Atlanta, Georgia, known also as Garrison Apartments and as 1325 Apartments, was built as a luxury apartment building in 1924. It was the third luxury apartment building built in Atlanta. It received a $2 million renovation during 1974 and was converted to a luxury condominium building in 1975. The ten-story building was designed by architect Philip T. Shutze of architectural firm Hentz, Reid and Adler in Classical Revival architecture. The 1974 renovation was by architect Eugene I. Lowry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University Apartments (Chicago)</span> United States historic place

The University Apartments, also known as the University Park Condominiums, are a pair of ten-story towers in Chicago, Illinois designed by I. M. Pei and Araldo Cossutta. The project was part of a city initiative to revitalize the residential development in Hyde Park just north of the University of Chicago. Within the Hyde Park neighborhood, they are colloquially known as "Monoxide Island."

References

  1. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. Emporis - Louisville, KY - Commodore Apartments [ dead link ]
  3. Josep & Joseph Buildings
  4. 1 2 Places in Time - Bonnycastle By Marcella Johnson Courier Journal
  5. Courier Journal January 17, 1978 page B1
  6. Courier-Journal April 4, 1981 page B10