North Street Jackson Hinds County. Image from Google Maps

I developed an interest in several Jackson apartment buildings after reading a 1929 Manufacturers Record magazine with the following entry.

Miss., Jackson — Tom B. Scott, Capitol Natl. Bk. Bldg and associates started work on 12 apartment group on North St. between Boyd and Fortification Sts. ; N. W. Overstreet, Archt., Miss. Fire Insurance Bldg. ; $75,000.¹

I had to double-check because these are not apartments on North STATE Street , but rather North Street one block east from North State Street.  According to the Sanborn fire insurance maps there are only two apartments complexes large enough to accommodate twelve apartments; the Bellevue Court Apartments and the North Manor Apartments.  In Jackson a late 1920’s building boom saw an increase purpose-built apartments such as the Bellevue Apartments and the North Manor Apartments.  According to the Bellevue Court Apartment National Register Nomination…

Bellevue Court Apartments 950 North Street Jackson, Hinds County Kelly Griffin, Consultant June, 1994 from MDAH HRI accessed 2-4-17

“As a result of this growth, the city’s earliest multi-unit masonry apartment buildings and apartment complexes began to be built as housing for professionals. Along with North Manor, Bellevue Court Apartments, also located on North Street, Belhaven Apartments (demolished 1992) located on Belhaven Street, Devore Apartments located at 1352 North State Street, and a single apartment building located on nearby High Street were built at this time in response to Jackson’s population growth.”

“According to the City Directory of 1930, the first tenants of the Bellevue Court Apartments were typically white-collar employees of downtown businesses. Almost all were married couples, most without children.”

These two complexes fall under the second definition of a Garden Apartment.  A Garden Apartment can be defined as “A multiple dwelling of two or three stories in height, usually in a suburban residential community, with a minimum of landscaping on the site.”²  I think gardens are loosely defined in these two apartment examples as there are small grassy areas between each of the buildings, two buildings in the instance of the North Manor Apartments, and three buildings in the instance of the Bellevue Court Apartments.  If you have been around MissPres for a while you might remember a post from a year or so ago about the J. Peyton McKay Apartments just a short distance away east on Fortification Street.  While not a garden apartment the McKay structure enticed tenants by having an edifice that resembled a single family dewlling that they would have aspired too.

North Manor Apartments 909 North St. Jackson November 1995 from MDAH HRI accessed 3-2-17

Unfortunately the southern building of the Tudor Revival North Manor Apartments was demolished prior to the 1995 National Register listing.  The MDAH HRI database says the firm of Hull & Malvaney are documented as having been the authors of the North Manor Apartments.  Curiously enough the National Register nomination and the MDAH database attribute, rather than document, that the Bellevue Court Apartments to mystery man Claude H. Lindsley.  The documentation in the Manufacturers Record is not enough to confirm that Overstreet designed this complex, but it is certainly worthwhile to look into why Lindsley was given the attribution for the Bellevue Apartments in the National Register Nomination.

Not to forget about the contractor for the Bellevue Court Apartments, Tom B. Scott has a brief entry in the MDAH HRI database, where he is credited with only three buildings all of which are in Jackson.  Does anyone know more about Mr. Scott?

Bellevue Court Apartments. 950 North Street Jackson, Hinds County June 2014 Image from Google Street View accessed 3-7-17

¹ Manufacturers’ record. v.95:no.20-26 (1929).
² Construction Dictionary: Construction Terms & Tables. Phoenix, AZ: Greater Phoenix, Arizona Chapter #98 of the National Association of Women in Construction, 1991. Print.

Categories: Architectural Research, Demolition/Abandonment, Historic Preservation, Jackson, National Register

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