Update: See the houses behind the building in this post from 2020.
The couple of apartment buildings that pop up here and there along Grand Boulevard always make me wonder: what would have happened if the city had continued to grow and become more dense? Would more buildings have joined the couple that do exist?
The Hutcheson Arms, built around 1928, is a building with fascinating mixtures of style. Art Deco elements, while more eclectic decorative schemes, seem to meld together.
Grand, once I’m sure bustling with pedestrians getting on and off the streetcars, is now little more than a traffic sewer. Only once it narrows further south does life return.
I lived in the Hutcheson Arms for a year in 2008. Lovely apartments, grand classic elevator, not so great co-tenants. A couple of times the elevator wasn’t working (you had to close the gate behind you for the thing to run to the next floor & people routinely forgot) I had to take the stairs & I found HUMAN feces on the stairs. But, loved the apartment & the view otherwise.
Sounds like an experience!
I’ve always found the brick patterns to be absolutely fascinating and mesmerizing. Do you know if special bricks were manufactured to create this effect or if the intense patterning is due to brick layers meticulously alternating bricks? My curiosity in part relates to whether the pattern is created by contrasting brick colors (with a relatively smooth surface) or if there are actually indentations and shadows formed by the bricks.
I think there are two colors of brick glazes on the building.
Since working in the building, I have discovered it was building in 1925. It also has much of the same Art Deco style throughout. It is a unique and beautiful building. In 2011, Hutcheson Arms was picked up by Village Green, a national management company, that has made a lot of great improvements to the building while keeping the character. There is also a completely new elevator that was installed not much after VG picked it up. I am sorry for any issues you may have had, Annie, but I can assure you that there is now much more than just a view!
Why was it named hutcheson?
My last name is hutcheson..just wondering.
Good question–I don’t know.