952 Peachtree St NE
Atlanta, GA, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Palmer House and Phelan House Apartments

Statement of Significance:

The Palmer House and Phelan House Apartments are significant in the area of architecture because the buildings are excellent examples of early 20th century apartments that were built for the city's middle- and upper-class residents. The rising popularity of the automobile in the first decades of the 20th century prompted affluent businessmen and single-family residents to begin to move to new suburbs, making way for the development of apartment houses along the Peachtree Street corridor. Improved technologies in building methods, sanitary systems, and the conveyance of gas and electric power made it possible for people to live in luxurious new apartment houses.

The Palmer is among the first buildings in Atlanta to offer luxury apartments for rent. The Phelan is significant because its apartment "flats" incorporated modern amenities and were large enough for families who chose to live in the suburbs. The so-called "French flats" were practical because they maximized the income from rental property where land had become too expensive for large private homes on spacious lots. Apartment houses in Atlanta were usually built for the middle and upper classes, who may have previously lived in hotels or boarding houses. The new multi-family residences were euphorically described as "each like a separate and distinct little village with all of the conveniences of home life and the many worries and cares of domestic care removed" (Funderburke, 1997). The Phelan House is a precursor to the garden apartment, which was popular in Atlanta in the late 1920s and 1930s.

The Palmer House and the Phelan House apartments are significant because they were designed in popular styles of the period by some of the city's most important architects. Gottfried L. Norrman, architect of the Palmer House, worked in Atlanta for nearly three decades beginning in 1880. He and designed Victorian-era picturesque buildings in a variety of styles. The Palmer is the only apartment building that survives of the six that Norrman designed in Atlanta between 1896 and 1907. J. Neel Reid and his associate Philip Trammell Shutze designed the Phelan House. The architectural drawings for the Phelan House indicate a collaboration between senior architects Hal Hentz and J. Neel Reid and the younger Philip Trammell Shutze. The drawing for the elaborate Peachtree Street doorway includes the initials of Hentz and Reid. The initials of Shutze and Reid appear on a drawing for the east façade under the heading "drawn by." Drawings for a typical floor plan and the north façade, which includes the Peachtree Place entrance and the courtyard, are marked "drawn by" and "traced by" PTS.

Reid and Shutze are among the state's best-known 20th-century classicists. Both architects studied in Europe before designing classically inspired residential and commercial buildings in Atlanta through the middle of the 20th century. Reid was the main designer in the firm and was one of Atlanta's best-known residential architects. Fascinated by Baroque architecture, Reid created lavish designs with oversized elements, such as door surrounds. In addition to his Atlanta residences, Reid designed Hills and Dales for Fuller Callaway in LaGrange, Georgia, Rich's and Muses's departments stores in Atlanta, and Emory University Hospital near Decatur.

Shutze's major Atlanta commissions include the renovation of the Citizens and Southern National Bank, the façade of Rich's downtown department store, the Reid House (originally the Garrison Apartments), The Temple, the Swan House, and Glenn Memorial Church on the campus Emory University. Shutze received the Bronze Metal for Achievement in Design by the American Institute of Architects in 1974 and the Classical America Society proclaimed him "America's Greatest Living Classical Architect" in 1977.