Rhodes Park - Birmingham, AL - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

The Rhodes Park district is roughly bounded by 10th Avenue South, 13th Avenue South and Highland Avenue, 28th and 30th Streets South. At its peak Rhodes Park’s gracious homes and trolley network made it one of Alabama’s most exclusive residential areas. Coords were taken at the Donnelly House.

From the Historical Markers of the four properties:
Donnelly House

This neoclassical structure was built in 1905 for John W. Donnelly, “the father of the Birmingham Library System.”
Donnelly moved to Birmingham from his native Cincinnati, Ohio after retiring from Proctor and Gamble. A much respected manufacturer, industrialist, real-estate developer, and civic leader, he is best remembered for his efforts to organize, fund and develop the Birmingham Public Library System—one of the finest in the southeast.

The Donnelly house, included in the Highland Avenue Historic District, has served as a private residence except during the 1950s, when the Birmingham Civic Ballet was located here.

Jordan House

Dr. Mortimer Harvie Jordan and his wife, Florence E. Mudd constructed their home between 1906 and 1908. After service in the Confederate Army, Jordan studied medicine in Cincinnati and New York (under Alabama’s famous gynecologist, Dr. J. Marlon Sims). As a doctor in Jefferson County, he is especially remembered for his tireless work in the 1875 cholera epidemic. He served on the State Board of Health (1879-83), as president of the State Medical Association (1884), and as chair of materia medica and therapeutics and clinical medicine in the Medical College of Alabama at Mobile (1886 for two terms). Jordan authored numerous publications on surgery, epidemiology, and gynecology and read many papers on these subjects before medical associations. Florence Mudd Jordan was the daughter of Judge William S. Mudd, builder of Arlington plantation.

The Jordan home was sold in 1928 and was restored to its original condition in 1969. A fine example of neo-classical architecture, the house features a wide portico with four Ionic columns and elaborate dentil work on the pediment.

The Coe House

John Valentine Coe, president of Birmingham Lumber and Coal Company, commissioned this two-story Craftsman-Tudor Revival style house in 1908. Coe, who had previously been a lumber merchant in Selma, moved his family to Birmingham at the turn of the 20th century. As the business thrived, he built this house in the Rhodes Park area of the Highland Park neighborhood. At the time, Highland Park’s gracious homes and trolley network made it one of Alabama’s most exclusive residential areas.

As a young child, the Coe’s daughter, Frances, was stricken with polio and remained largely confined to the house for most of her life.
In 1970, the Coe family sold the property and it housed the Morningside Commune until 1975. In 1977, the Alabama United Methodist Children’s Home acquired the property and for more than two decades assisted over 3,600 children. The Coe House was purchased from the UMCH and restored as a private residence in 1999.

The house was individually listed to the Alabama Register of Landmark and Heritage in 1977. Also in 1977, the Highland Avenue-Rhodes Park Historic District was included in the National Register of Historic Places. The Coe House was added to the historic district when it expanded in 1982 to include the Rhodes Park area. The Highland Park neighborhood contains some of Birmingham’s most notable residential architecture and is representative of some of the earliest urban residential planning efforts in the state.

A. B. Loveman House

The house was built c. 1908 for Adolph B. Loveman, a Hungarian immigrant who in 1887 founded the dry goods business that evolved into one of Birmingham’s signature retail establishments, Loveman, Joseph & Loeb. Its English-style neighbor to the north on the Circle was built at the same time for Adolph’s eldest son Joseph.

A fine example of early 20th-century Neoclassicism, the simple block of the house is made monumental by the richly detailed and pedimented portico with its clustered Corinthian columns and detail moldings. Although the identity of the architect is obscure, it is attributed to the firm of Wheelock, Joy and Wheelock. It is thought to have been at least partially designed by Thomas U. Walter III, grandson of U.S. Capitol architect Thomas Ustick Walter. Facing incipient blindness, Mr. Walter retired from the profession about 1905 and his designs were fulfilled by other firms.

The house was in the Loveman family for two generations before Leona Loveman Cronhelm sold it in 1973 to a religious group. Shortly thereafter, the Salvation Army purchased the house as a home for girls who used some of the rooms as a bowling alley.

Back on the market in the early 1980s, attorney David Shelby for use as an office purchased it for himself and his law partner Robert Roden. Shelby restored the house retaining original materials and features, creating minimal changes to the interior arrangements and completely refurbishing the exterior. In 2008 Roden purchased the house and again refurbished the office as well as the Carriage House at the rear of the property. The former carriage house had been a secondary residence for the family of A. G. Gaston (1892-1996), a pioneering African-American businessman, whose mother worked as a cook for the Loveman family.

The A. B. Loveman House was included as a part of the Highland Avenue-Rhodes Park Historic District in the national Register of Historic Places in 1977 and expanded in 1982.

County / Borough / Parish: Jefferson Year listed: 1982 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Event, Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1900-1924, 1875-1899 Historic function: Domestic Current function: Domestic Privately owned?: yes Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Street address: Not listed Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 1: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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