Verona Apartments, Detroit Michigan

The Verona Apartments building is the work of prominent Detroit architects, William G. Malcolmson and William E. Higginbotham. Their partnership began in 1890 and is known for two Romanesque Revival churches located within the University-Cultural Center. They also built schools for the Detroit Public School system, including Central High School (now Old Main), which was completed in 1896, the same year, and only a few blocks away from the Verona. The Verona is an early example of a high-rise apartment building. The Romanesque character to the Verona, the Sullivanesque decoration, and the rounded embayments on the front facade suggest the influence of the Chicago School of architecture, the breeding ground in the late 19^th century of the development of well-lighted, spacious, fireproof and steel-framed skyscrapers.

The Verona originally consisted of sixteen spacious suites. Located in a semi-rural or suburban section of Detroit, the Verona catered to upper-class men and women, company officials, professionals, and well-to-do widows. Although a multi-unit building, the Verona offered some features, the three separate entrances, for example, that provided intense privacy for its upper-class occupants. By 1945, however, changes within the UCC had caught up with the Verona. The original sixteen suites were subdivided into smaller apartments; occupants as a whole were less wealthy than those at the beginning; and commercial space began to be rented out of the basement and first two levels. Thus, the history of the Verona reflects the change of the UCC from an upper-class residential area to a more commercial orientation in which the population by the mid-20^th century consisted of students, employees of area institutions, and less affluent residents.

Malcolmson and Higginbotham were prominent Detroit architects in the 1890s. They designed the Queen Anne David Mackenzie House at 4735 Cass in 1895, and much of their work was in the period revival styles of the day. In 1891, they built a Romanesque Revival house for William A. Pungs at 60 E. Ferry. They also built impressive Romanesque Revival churches in the UCC: the Cass Avenue Methodist Church (1891) at the northwest corner of Cass and Selden; and St. Joseph's P.E. Memorial Church (now the Holy Rosary R.C. Church) built in 1896 and today located at Woodward and the Ford Expressway. Central High School, completed in 1896, was one among many buildings they constructed for the Detroit Public School system. Others included Scotten Avenue High School (currently Western High School), and Cass Technical High School.

The firm's Verona Apartments represents a scaled-down application of pioneering building and decorative techniques developed by architects in late 19th-century Chicago. Built between 1894 and 1896, the Verona was designed as a combined Romanesque and Sullivanesque style building. The Romanesque aspects of the Verona probably reflected late 19th-century thinking coming out of Chicago about how best to construct tall buildings. One of Chicago's pioneers in the field of skyscraper construction, John W. Root (1850-91), attempted to evolve the skyscraper out of the Romanesque. Root emphasized the vertical dimension of tall structures by using continuous piers uninterrupted by horizontal divisions. Chicago architects also employed a series of bay sections, courtyards, and plenty of windows to filter natural sunlight into large buildings. Chicago's Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) developed stylized floral and circular geometric decoration to enhance otherwise sturdy and functional structures.

The Verona and surrounding property on W. Ferry was developed by the real estate firm of Collins B. Hubbard and George Dingwall. Collins Hubbard was the son of Michigan pioneer and land developer, Bela Hubbard (1814-96). In the late 19^th century, Bela Hubbard began to buy undeveloped land in the Park Lots out along Woodward. As the population spread north along Woodward, Hubbard reasoned that property values would eventually rise, netting him a tidy profit as a result. Collins worked in his father's real estate office, which had properties throughout the state, and together they developed new areas of Detroit, platted streets, and built homes. Collins went into business for himself in 1872, and from 1881 to 1901, he struck up a partnership with Civil War veteran George Dingwall.

In 1894, Hubbard and Dingwall acquired from Bela Hubbard and John King the subdivision on W. Ferry on which they subsequently built the Verona. By 1895, the firm had a value of some $700,000. Hubbard and Dingwall also owned 4,000 feet of frontage on Warren Avenue and another 11,000 feet of frontage on streets in the vicinity of Warren. They also owned the Cass Avenue Hotel, the Holcomb Flats at Merrick and Third, six stores with apartments above Third Avenue, and property in Bay, Gladwin, and Midland counties.

By the time the Verona was built in the mid-1890s, the surrounding area had been platted and subdivided, but residential construction did not begin in earnest until after about 1905. The several apartment buildings that today crowd the same block as the Verona were built between 1908 and 1913. The Verona attracted its early upper-class residents with sixteen luxury suites, in uncluttered and almost rural surroundings, and a sense of privacy that came from having three separate entrances to the apartment building. As a class, early occupants consisted of businessmen, teachers, lawyers, musicians, and other professionals. Two tenants in particular stand out: Allen L. Benson, a local newspaper editor who became the Socialist Party's presidential candidate in 1916; and Frank Irving Cobb, another editor, who left Detroit in 1904 to edit Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Cobb eventually became one of the leading editorial writers of his time.

In 1945, the owners of the Verona took out a building permit with the City of Detroit to undertake interior alterations that would change the occupancy of the building from eighteen to forty-four families. Two years later, the owners began to open the Verona to commercial development. The front room of the basement apartment became a dressmaking shop, while the owners made plans to convert the first and second floors into offices. By 1950, the Verona had changed to reflect the commercial development and population changes that had taken hold of the University--Cultural Center.

Building Description

The Verona Apartments building was built in 1894-96 on W. Ferry at the corner of Cass. The front Romanesque arched entryway and the two four-story bay window sections suggest the architectural influence of the Chicago School in methods of constructing high-rise buildings in the late 19^th century. The floral decor on both the exterior and interior of the original sixteen-suite apartment building suggests, as well, the influence of Chicago's Louis Sullivan. The symmetrical structure is "T" shaped in its layout, but viewed from Cass and W. Ferry the Verona is decidedly squarish in its basic proportions. The main central body of the structure is five stories high, while the two identical flanking wings are three stories. Three distinct parts make up the Verona: a five-foot-high base portion comprised of smooth cut stone arranged in a running bond pattern, with an occasional thin string course of rough cut stone; then the main body constructed out of an orange colored brick; and an upper frieze section minus the original entablature, which had consisted of an elaborate cornice supported by floral decorated brackets. The main vestibule and lobby feature dark finished oak woodwork and wainscotting, Ionic columns, and a carefully crafted iron cage elevator and oak staircase. Today, the Verona consists of over twenty-six apartments. The basement level on the Cass side is used for commercial purposes.

The main body of the Verona facing W. Ferry is symmetrically arranged about a center axis, located at the center is an arched entranceway of a decidedly Romanesque character. The semi-circular arch is framed by three sets of banding, which terminate on brackets. These brackets align with the top molding of the base portion of the building. The word "Verona" appears on the interior banding, intermixed with the floral pattern, which is Sullivanesque in style. Three stories of paired windows rise above the main archway. Situated within the rounded arch located above these windows is a circular ornament decorated with a Sullivanesque floral design. Two four-story bay sections flanking the main entrance section increase the amount of light reaching the interior apartments. Each level of the bay sections consists of a group of three Windows, most are of the single sash type with a transom light above.