Ponce de Leon Apartments is a historic apartment building in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. A part of the

Fox Theatre Historic District The Fox Theatre Historic District is located in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and consists of the following buildings: * the Fox Theater (Atlanta), Fox Theatre (Oliver Vinour et al., 1929) * W ...

, the building is located at the intersection of

Peachtree Street Peachtree Street is one of several major streets running through the city of Atlanta. Beginning at Five Points (Atlanta), Five Points in downtown Atlanta, it runs North through Midtown Atlanta, Midtown; a few blocks after entering into Buckhead ...

and

Ponce de Leon Avenue Ponce de Leon Avenue ( ), often simply called Ponce, provides a link between Atlanta, Decatur, Clarkston, and Stone Mountain, Georgia. It was named for Ponce de Leon Springs, in turn from explorer Juan Ponce de León, but is not pronounced ...

midtown Atlanta Midtown Atlanta, or Midtown, is a high-density commercial and residential neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. The exact geographical extent of the area is ill-defined due to differing definitions used by the city, residents, and local business ...

. It was built by the

George A. Fuller Company George A. Fuller (1851 – December 14, 1900) was an American architect often credited as being the "inventor" of modern skyscrapers and the modern contracting system. Early life and career Fuller was born in Templeton, Massachusetts, near W ...

in 1913, with

William Lee Stoddart William Lee Stoddart (1868–1940) was an architect who designed urban hotels in the Eastern United States. Although he was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, most of his commissions were in the South. He maintained offices in Atlanta and New York C ...

as the building's architect. The building was designated a Landmark Building by the

government of Atlanta The city government of Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States is composed of a mayor and body of one councilman from each of 12 districts, a City Council President, and 3 other at-large councilmen: *Post 1 representing districts 1-4 *Post 2 repr ...

in 1993.

History

In 1911, the Georgian Terrace Hotel, designed by architect

, opened at the intersection of

and

. The building was the first hotel in Atlanta built outside of

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

and took over a year to construct. Prior to this, in 1909, Stoddart had designed a large apartment building at the southeast corner of the same intersection, across the street from the hotel. Construction began on this new building shortly after the completion of the hotel, albeit with the size of the building significantly scaled down. The

served as contractors for the building's construction, which cost $450,000. In 1913, the Ponce de Leon Apartments officially opened. The building was designed to have several large apartment units on most floors, with the top two floors reserved for

bachelor apartments ''Bachelor Apartments'' is a 1921 American silent comedy film directed by Johnnie Walker.Connelly p.319 It was distributed by the Arrow Film Corporation. Cast * Georgia Hopkins as June Shelton * Fred Howard as I.O. Underwood * George Dupree a ...

. Additionally, the building housed Atlanta's first

penthouse Penthouse most often refers to: *Penthouse apartment, a special apartment on the top floor of a building *Penthouse (magazine), ''Penthouse'' (magazine), a British-founded men's magazine *Mechanical penthouse, a floor, typically located directly u ...

when it was built on the roof of the building in 1932. Additionally, the first floor originally housed a pharmacy and a bookstore, and there was an ice plant in the basement for residents of the building. While initially billed as "the South's most luxurious apartments", the apartments began to lose their prestige during the later half of the 20th century as more wealthy tenants moved to newer domiciles in the area. As a result, many of the larger apartment units in the building were subdivided to serve a less affluent tenantry. In 1978, the building was declared a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...

of the

and placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. By the 1980s, the building had fallen into a state of deterioration, and the building was purchased by developers who converted the building to condominiums. In 1982, the building was renamed The Ponce Condominium. In 1993, the building was declared a Landmark Building by the

Architecture

The 11-story building's front façade curves about the intersection, allowing it to directly face two of the major thoroughfares in the city. The building is mostly symmetrical, with the central curved portion bookended on both sides by two square towers capped with belfries.

References

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

* * {{Atlanta landmarks Apartment buildings in Atlanta Residential buildings completed in 1913 Historic district contributing properties in Georgia (U.S. state) Beaux-Arts architecture in Georgia (U.S. state) Renaissance Revival architecture in Georgia (U.S. state)