The 1909 Admiral Apartments began as a luxury multifamily building on the fashionable South Park Blocks. After decades of decline, it was revived and converted into subsidized housing for low-income seniors and people with disabilities who enjoy living in the Portland Cultural District. Apartments are small, but so are the rents.

--Janet Eastman | 503-799-8739

jeastman@oregonian.com

Steve Morgan via Wikimedia Commons

The Tudor Revival-style apartments at 910 S.W. Park Ave. was originally called the Wheeldon Apartment Building after first manager Alice Wheeldon, but it was renamed Glen Court, then finally the Admiral Apartments in 1929.

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Oregon Historical Society

Around 1909, developer E. R. Pittelkau hired respected Portland architect Emil Schacht and Son to design an upscale apartment house. The location: The South Park Blocks, which began in the 1880s as a Central Park ideal of mansions overlooking public spaces. Churches, theaters, hotels and apartment houses eventually edged their way into the tony neighborhood.

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The five-story, wood-framed Admiral Apartments building has a red face brick and cement plaster facade topped by a crenelated parapet. The structure cost $60,000 to build in 1909.

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A 1910 headline in The Oregonian blared: "Modern Apartment Houses Rise in Portland to Meet Popular Demand." A tremendous need for housing was the result of the successful 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, which attracted millions of visitors to the newly spruced-up town. Many decided to stay.

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The Admiral Apartments building debuted with such high-tech features as an automatic elevator and electric dumbwaiter. Today, each apartment has internet access.

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The grand entrance, through a Tudor-style arch, leads to the lobby. Visitors can see that this building has a historic and architectural pedigree.

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In 1990, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places even though many of the original interior finishes -- the stairs are an exception -- have been replaced over the decades.

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Corridors lead to the apartments. Some of the original luxury apartments were large enough to have five bedrooms. When the building was upgraded, corridor ventilation was installed to improve the indoor air quality.

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Formal rooms had wainscot adorning the walls. Bay windows reflect the Tudor Revival style and the end of the Victorian era.

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The original kitchenettes had the latest refrigeration and electric appliances called "fireless cookers."

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Today, each apartment has Energy Star lighting and appliances and improved range hood vents.

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Bedrooms could serve other purposes, thanks to original "disappearing bedsteads."

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Today, the Admiral Apartments building is owned by REACH, a nonprofit affordable housing development and property management company.

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The Admiral, a subsidized building for low-income seniors and people with disabilities, has 475-square-foot studio apartments and one-bedroom apartments with about 650 square feet of living space.

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Rents range from $799 to $946, however, resident rents are based on paying only 30 percent of their adjusted monthly income. The difference in the rental rate and what residents can afford is covered by the subsidy.

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There are specific age and income eligibility criteria to live in the Admiral Apartments and there is a wait list to contact when there is a vacancy.

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Originally, bathrooms had tiled floors. Today, there is Marmoleum flooring. Energy- and water-saving features include low-flow plumbing fixtures and fans that continually exhaust to the outside.

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The modernized 1909 building includes a computer lab, laundry room, resident services and community room. When the building's original floor joists had to be replaced, they were repurposed into furniture for the community room.

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Rather than having to take the stairs, early residents could call a private electric dumbwaiter up from the basement to their apartment.

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According to an Oregonian story, by 1913 the building housed "sporting girls" and then half of the building burned at the start of the Depression.

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Heritage Investment Corporation via National Register of Historic Places

A photo taken in 1933 shows signs for Barneys Cleaners, Terminal Cafe, a shoe rebuilding shop, locksmith and drug store with a soda fountain.

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Over time, the once-luxury apartment building devolved into a flophouse, before it was remade into subsidized housing in the 1980s.

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In 1981, the Admiral was renovated into 37 affordable apartments under Oregon Housing and Community Services' Elderly and Disabled Bond Program.

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In 2008, the Admiral was at risk of losing its affordability due to the expiration of the Section 8 contract. REACH purchased the building to help the residents, several of whom had lived there for more than 20 years.

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Recent renovations include seismic upgrades, additional insulation, high efficiency steam heat boilers and hot water heaters. Modernization, as designed by SERA Architects and built by the Walsh Construction Co., was achieved while holding on to century-old character.







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"We are proud to have been part of this effort; it reinforces our longstanding commitment to preserve housing affordability in Portland neighborhoods, especially in high-rent areas like downtown," says Lauren Schmidt of REACH.

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See more of Portland's most beautiful apartment buildings: Wander through this gallery of important and surviving apartment buildings that rose from the pre-1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition days until the Depression. The photo is of the lion that guards the 1922 Ambassador Apartments at 1200 S.W. 6th Ave.

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Read more: Learn why the East Coast idea of luxury living in a classically designed building caught on here in "The Apartment House in Portland, Oregon" by Ed Teague, director of branch libraries at the University of Oregon. This is the Tudor Revival-style Ambassador Apartment, which was built downtown in 1922.

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Deven Stross Photography, LLC

Check out this other historic building: Northwest Portland's 1911 Trinity Place Apartments at 117 N.W. Trinity Place were designed by architect William C. Knighton of Knighton & Root in the Tudor Revival style. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Walter W. McMonies, who owns the Trinity Place Apartments, says many of Portland's classic apartment houses survived the "indifference" of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and were revived In the 1980s by investor developers.