Colonial Apartments – Carthage, Missouri - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

The Colonial Apartments is a two-story complex of sixteen apartments and four two-story town houses,located at 406 Walnut Street in Carthage, Missouri. The property consists of two buildings, originally designated by the architects as "A,"(east) and "B"(west), which designations are used throughout this submission. Building A is rectangular. Building B is U-shaped, arranged around a forecourt. Building A faces Garrison Street. Building B faces Walnut Street. In style, they are a 1947-1948 interpretation of the Colonial Revival, with Georgian design features. Walls are a muted red-brown brick. Foundations are poured concrete. Decorative trim is wood, painted white. Principal decoration is in door enframements, which exhibit a variety of Colonial Revival motifs. Roofs are low-pitched hips, save at the ends of the main blocks, where the roofs are flat. Windows are doubled six-over-six sash in the main blocks and single six-over-six sash in the end wings. Fixed decorative windows are above front entry doors. The hipped roofs are pierced with segmental arched dormers filled with louvers.

The Colonial Apartments, built 1947-1948, constitute the only true apartment block complex in the small county seat town of Carthage, Missouri (1990 population, 10,747). They were constructed at a time when returning service men and their families, together with other newcomers to a thriving post-World War Two economy, created a housing shortage. B&G Construction Company of Carthage, owner-builder, engaged the Kansas City, Missouri architectural firm of Neville, Sharp, and Simon to create a design in the Colonial Revival Style. The apartment complex utilizes the two city lots on which it is sited to provide an urban-like ambience for sixteen apartments and four town houses.

The multi-story apartment block as a building type, consisting usually of three or more stories, is an almost exclusively urban phenomenon. In Carthage, neither urban nor densely populated, the architects of the Colonial Apartments managed to design a two-story configuration that was distinctive for the town, but not incongruous, either in style or scale. In keeping with their domestic purpose the Colonial Apartments utilize decorative elements and design principles more typical of dwellings than of large buildings of the style. Though clearly in the stream of the Georgian Colonial Revival, a style well elaborated by 1947, they have characteristics that seem to draw directly from Colonial prototypes. The result was a unique addition to an already rich aggregation of good architecture in Carthage.

– National Register Nomination

The Colonial Apartments appear to be in good condition and continue to serve the original purpose.

Street address: 406 Walnut St. Carthage, Missouri County / Borough / Parish: Jasper Year listed: 2001 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1925 - 1949 Historic function: Domestic Current function: Domestic Privately owned?: yes Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   05/18/2023 wildernessmama visited it