Benjamin Apartments
a.k.a. Home Hospital; Physicians and Surgeons Hospital
1218 Webster St., Houston, TXThe Benjamin Apartments, at 1218 Webster Street in Houston, Texas, was built in 1923-24, during a building boom spurred by the city's rapid growth and the need to provide housing for the growing professional, trade and business classes. Designed by Alfred Charles Finn, one of Houston's premier early 20th-century architects, the building was commissioned by, and named for, Benjamin Cohen, a Houston businessman who founded The Smart Shop, a fine clothing store, and the Columbia Dry Goods Company. In this neighborhood just south of downtown, brick apartment buildings like the Benjamin began appearing in the 1910s, augmenting what had predominantly been a residential neighborhood of wood-framed, single-family dwellings, with elaborate mansions lining the major north-south thoroughfares. A few examples of these early 20th-century apartment buildings remain in the area, but many have been unsympathetically altered, demolished, or neglected to the point of substantial deterioration. The Benjamin Apartments is one of the best remaining examples of this building type and period of architectural development in Houston, and it is nominated to the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion C in the area of Architecture at the local level of significance.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.