Melrose Apartment Building

The 1914 Melrose Apartment Building in Galveston represents a type of commercial building that became popular in the early 20th century as Galveston's growing population created a greater demand for urban housing. Occupying a prominent corner lot next to the Grand Opera House, the 3-story brick building typifies the 2-part commercial block form and displays modest Prairie School influences. Representative of commercial building patterns in Galveston during this time period, the building falls under the context of Historic Resources of the Galveston Central Business District (MRA 1984). One of the few surviving pre-depression era apartment buildings in downtown Galveston, the Melrose Apartment Building meets Criterion C in the area of Architecture at the local level of significance. The recent rehabilitation of the building, restoring its historic function of mixed retail and residential uses, makes the Melrose Apartment Building once again a significant member of Galveston's Central Business District.

Galveston in the early 20th century functioned as a major regional port and retail center. The completion of a causeway in 1912 improved rail and auto access to the island, helping commercial activity throughout the city. After the 1900 hurricane, Galveston's population fell from 37,788 in 1900 to 36,981 in 1910, a number that quickly rebounded during the next decade however, growing to 44,255 in 1920. Although early commercial activity focused on the bay area streets of Strand and Mechanic, later retail development spread to the south, especially along Market and Post Office Streets. In 1913, the Galveston Daily News reported unprecedented construction in the downtown district and stated that the addition of electric lights in the area had greatly benefited retailers. In 1914, the paper called the area east of 23rd Street and north of Avenue F (Church Street), the precise location of the Melrose Apartment Building, one of the most favored districts in Galveston for commercial buildings.

As the site of a coast guard station and small military base (Fort Crockett), Galveston witnessed a high demand for rental properties due to the number of troops there coupled with the increasingly urban population of the time. Apartment buildings, such as the Melrose, became a popular method of providing conveniently located housing for those who could not afford the more luxurious houses in the nearby East End and Silk Stocking neighborhoods.

Prior to 1913, the site of the Melrose Apartment Building was a vacant lot with the only improvement being a small metal warehouse. William H. Janssen, a building contractor and real estate developer, sold the site to W.D. Haden, a paving and dredging contractor, and V.E. Austin, a city commissioner, real estate capitalist, and relative to Stephen F. Austin, on December 31, 1913. According to Galveston County deed records, Janssen served as the builder and financier of the Melrose Apartment Building, which was built specifically for income-producing purposes.

The building, completed in 1914, provided five retail spaces on the ground floor and 23 apartments on the upper two floors. Early tenants of the building included Tiemanns Grocery, Braun Dry Goods, Pruessner Florist, and several middle-class tenants upstairs.
V.E. Austin died in 1938; his three daughters sold their 1/2 interest in the property to W.D. Haden on July 8, 1942. After Haden's death two years later, Haden's son sold the property to Sam J. Tramonte et al for $31,500 on March 16, 1945. Apparently, during the Tramonte ownership, the building became a nightclub, part of Galveston's growing gambling and liquor scene that made the town famous during the inter-war years and the 1950s. Stimulated by prohibition in the 1920s, Galveston grew into a hot spot for gambling and other illegal activities. The city had always seen extensive prostitution since the Civil War, and the combination of these elements gave Galveston the title of "sin city of the Gulf." By 1955, City Directories show the Melrose Apartment Building housed the Stork/Corral Club, operated by Alf J. DelPapa. When Attorney General Will Wilson and the Texas Rangers shut down several of Galveston's gambling and prostitution houses on June 11, 1957, the Stork Club was one of the 47-night spots listed on the injunctions.
Tramonte sold the property on June 20, 1978, for $85,000 to Joe Celli. Through these years the building fell into considerable disrepair and remained uninhabitable after Hurricane Alicia in 1983. In 1992, the building had been variously painted and the entire ground floor storefronts and transoms had been completely covered to facilitate usage as a topless nightclub. After Joe Celli's death in 1992, Nations Bank (executor of the Celli Estate) sold the property to the current owners, who initiated a complete rehabilitation of the building in 1993, restoring it to its historic function of ground floor retail and upper floor apartment space.

A historically recent development in the United States, the apartment building in the early 20th century became a viable way of housing large numbers of people closely and comfortably on increasingly valuable urban land. Their popularity continued through the 1910s and beyond as more and more people moved to growing urban centers like Galveston. Typical middle- to moderate-income apartment buildings sprang up on the edges of commercial and residential areas. These small and typically un-elaborate buildings tended to have plain, boxy appearances with flat roofs and little landscaping. Their popularity and continued use make them an important building type in American architecture.

The Melrose Apartment Building represents this type while displaying characteristics typical of the 2-part commercial block form. Usually consisting of one to four stories, the 2-part commercial block building is divided horizontally into two distinct sections, reflecting differences in their uses. The lower section, typically used for retail space, features large plate glass display windows and storefront entries topped by transoms, while the upper section, usually used as private living quarters or offices, typically features smaller sets of windows.

Although primarily a vernacular commercial building, the Melrose Apartment Building displays mild Prairie School influences. Most often applied to houses, the Prairie School style became popular during the first two decades of the 20th century, emphasizing a predominantly horizontal appearance and featuring distinctive geometric patterns for ornamentation. The diamond-shaped patterns on the vertical pilasters and pediments, the horizontal, rectangular bands above second and third-story windows, and the date of construction (1914) all reveal a modest Prairie School influence on the Melrose Apartment Building.

In Galveston, few of these pre-depression era apartment buildings remain in the downtown area, and none are listed within the Galveston Central Business District MRA. Most of these listed buildings consist of late Victorian-style commercial buildings and residences, as well as turn-of-the-century government buildings and churches. In fact, although modifications occurred to some older buildings during the 1910s, only two other commercial buildings recognized in the MRA were built during the early 20th century.

The Melrose Apartment Building today is a representative, rather than exceptional, an example of this type of commercial architecture in Galveston. Three nearby NR buildings, the 1894 Grand Opera House (listed in 1974), the 1899 I.O.O.F. Building and the 1907 Robinson Building (both listed in 1984) are also 2-part commercial block buildings that display similar brick detailing, elliptical arched windows, and, with the exception of the Opera House, are modest in size and appearance. The 1913-14 Model Laundry Building (listed in 1984), at the opposite end of the MRA, displays similar transoms, diamond shaped ornamentation, and brick corbels. Like these buildings, the Melrose Apartment Building embodies distinctive characteristics of an early 20th-century commercial/apartment building in Galveston. Occupying a prominent corner lot, the Melrose was built in an area of the city that witnessed rapid commercial expansion just prior to World War I and the Great Depression, which prompted much of Galveston's businesses and population to move to nearby Houston. The recent rehabilitation of the Melrose Apartment Building restores its historic role within the Central Business District, making it once again an important contributor to the historic environment of the Multiple Resource Area.