Actually the last of the three, Bridger Arms was built in 1926. While the plans emanated from the office of engineer W.R. Plew, the design is attributed to architect Hurlbert C. Cheever, at the time a professor of architecture at Montana State College. This is also the only one of the three apartment buildings not designed by prominent and prolific local architect Fred F. Willson.
The two storey, ten unit, building was built of red brick in a slightly Colonial Revival style, with suggestions of Art Deco. Still fully occupied, the building appears to remain in excellent condition. A full physical description follows.
Bridger Arms
The third and last of the large apartment complexes built in Bozeman in the early 20th century, this two-story, ten-unit building is a very simple example of the Colonial Revival style. Each paired entrance, one door serving the upper floor apartment and the other serving the lower, is marked by a pair of rounded piers that project upward from the parapet - features suggestive of the Art Deco style. The building, which occupies the full half-block between Babcock and Olive Streets, faces the open yards of the Emerson School, and consequently appears quite large.
The Bridger Arms Apartments were built by E. Broox Martin, an entrepreneur who also built the Evergreen Apartments. (Mrs. G.D. Martin, his wife, signed the Sewer and Water Permit for the site.) Unlike the other two apartment buildings mentioned above, as well as virtually every large, early 20th century building in Bozeman, this building was not designed by local architect Fred F. Willson, but by Hurlbert C. Cheever, who taught architecture at Montana State College. Cheever often worked for Willson during the summers, or helped out in the office of W.R. Plew, a civil engineer who was also a professor at the College. Plew's name appears on the working drawings for this building, but it was most likely designed by Cheever.
This two-story apartment building has a rectangular plan with six-light entrance doors and six-over-six and eight-over-eight double-hung windows. There are five pairs of 9-light wooden entrance doors with arched 6-light transoms across the front facade, which is symmetrical. Cast iron porch lanterns flank each pair of entrance doors. The brick construction rests on a concrete foundation and has a flat roof. The brick is patterned around the doors on the second story and there is a molded frieze with dentils. The parapet features colored, decorative, arched brick piers over each entrance and is finished with concrete coping. The axis of the roof is parallel to the street. Outbuildings include a garage and an incinerator.
From the NRHP Architectural Inventory