SUMMARY OF PROPOSED NATIONAL REGISTER/GEORGIA REGISTER NOMINATION

1. Name: Winnwood Apartments

2. Location: 1460 West Peachtree Street NW, Atlanta, Fulton County, Georgia

3a. Description: Winnwood Apartments is a two-story, 24-unit apartment building located approximately four and a half miles north of city hall in Midtown Atlanta. The property is an excellent example of a garden apartment with its open, deep U-shaped footprint, central courtyard, and lack of porches. The symmetrical building has a flat roof and parapets, some of which are stepped and brick while others are hipped and terracotta-tile covered. The primary entrances are accessed from the courtyard and are emphasized through the use of pilasters, classical cornices, and decorative features such as pineapple-shaped finials and fans over large twelve- over-twelve windows. Shared rear entrances to the apartments are found on the side and rear elevations, and due to the property’s change in elevation, a partial basement is exposed in these areas. At the front of the building, two projections extend toward West Peachtree Street and are three bays wide. Their central bays are accentuated by pairs of full height pilasters, which support rounded pediments that pierce the hipped parapets and frame single six-over-six windows with balconettes. Throughout the building, historic six-over-six and four-over-four windows are found as singles, pairs, and groups of three. From the four primary entrances, small foyers are accessed. Each foyer retains historic materials and finishes, including plaster walls and ceilings, wainscoting, and staircases. The building’s original intact floorplan includes 10 apartments each on the first and second floors and four apartments in the basement. Apartments are a mixture of studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom units and retain historic materials and finishes including plaster walls and ceilings, wood floors, paneled doors, window and door surrounds, moldings and baseboards, as well as built-in cabinets, hardware, and radiators. Behind the building is a one-story, brick and wood multi-stall garage, constructed at the same time as the apartments and considered a second contributing building on the property. The intact landscape and hardscape of the courtyard is considered a contributing site and consists of a concrete sidewalk to each primary entrance, trimmed hedges along the foundation and in the courtyard, and plantings such as boxwood, nandina, and dogwood trees. The courtyard is enclosed by a low brick wall topped by iron fencing with a central brick-arched gate entrance, which is considered a contributing object.

3b. Period of Significance: 1931

3c. Acreage: less than one acre

3d. Boundary Explanation: The proposed boundary is the current legal parcel of the property and contains the historic landscape features historically associated with Winnwood Apartments.

4a. National Register Criteria: A and C

4b. National Register Areas of Significance: Architecture, Community Planning and Development

4c. Statement of Significance: Winnwood Apartments is locally significant under Criterion C in the area of architecture as an excellent example of a garden apartment, a building type which defined multi-family residential architecture in the early to mid-20th century. It has an open, deep U-shaped plan, a popular layout pattern for garden apartments, as defined in Dagmar Becker’s context “Garden Apartments in Atlanta, A Typology Study.” It exhibits a multitude of characteristic features of the type, with its setback from the street, enclosed space (called a “garden” or “courtyard”), separate entrances leading to apartment units, distinct front and back sides, rear or service entrances, and parking at the rear of the building. Its two-story height, symmetrical layout of units, lack of porches, and use of brick cladding and the Georgian Revival style are also indicative of the type. Winnwood Apartments is also significant in the area of architecture, as a good intact example of the Georgian Revival style as applied to an apartment building. It features many hallmarks of the style, including symmetrical design; emphasis on entrances through the use of pediments with pilasters, paired doors, and transoms; single and grouped double-hung multi-light windows; built-in cabinets with broken pediments; and classically-inspired ornament including a simple classical cornice, quoins, and hipped parapets and parapet walls. Winnwood Apartments was built by Atlanta builder/developer H. W. Nicholes and Son, a prominent father/son firm that achieved a reputation for high quality work, designing and building residences in Atlanta’s most desirable neighborhoods, including Druid Hills, Virginia Highlands, and Ansley Park. Winnwood Apartments is also significant under Criterion A in the area of community planning and development as a good representative example of the apartment development that proliferated Atlanta during the 1920s and early 1930s, as inflated land prices made multi-family rental housing an increasingly acceptable option for middle and upper-class residency. Rapid growth of the white middle-class population, rising property values, the expansion of streetcar lines, and the rise of automobile transportation led to the construction of apartments north and east of downtown Atlanta, primarily in what is known today as the Midtown area.

4d. Suggested Level of Significance: The property is being nominated at the local level of significance as an excellent example of a garden apartment building in Atlanta.

5. Sponsor: The nomination is sponsored by the property owner, and nomination materials were prepared by Ray, Ellis & LaBrie Consulting. Summary prepared September 2020/LBI