TBT Rockford: Windsor Apartment Building

The Windsor apartment building located at 902 - 910 North Main Street at the northwest corner of Whitman Street was constructed in 1916 by Sherman B. Letts and George W Bennett at a cost of $110,000. Rockford Architects Carpenter & Bradley designed the project, and W. H. Cook was the contractor for the Windsor apartment building. Cook, who was a contractor here since 1896, had erected some of the best buildings in the city, such as Rockford High School, Rockford Trust Building, Memorial Hall, Carnegie library, and the Elks Club. These apartments were extremely unusual at the time. The beautiful brick and stone building was built in the arts and crafts style, which started in Europe in the 1880's and continued in this country until the 1920's. Unlike the earlier Victorian style, the arts and crafts style focuses on simplicity. There are many examples of this style architecture around the "Wrigleyville" area in Chicago. The Windsor was modern in every detail. The eighteen unit apartment building included a mix of one, two and three bedroom apartments. Not only did the building feature an abundance of windows to flood the apartments with light but featured oak hardwood floors and woodwork. The 9-1/2 foot tall walls of each apartment have foot-tall molding at the baseboards, high ornate ceilings and at the chair rails.

Twelve of the apartments had sun parlors and the remaining six had balconies. All sun parlors were heated and finished just as nicely as any other room in the apartment. The living room and sun parlors, along with the halls, had a mahogany finish. The living rooms featured oak mantled fireplaces with built-in wood bookcases on either side. A very handsome large buffet was in each dining room, and the kitchens were done in an ivory finish with butler's pantries, built-in kitchen cabinets and a refrigerator in each apartment with an outside ice opening. The bathrooms were finished in white enamel, with mosaic tile floor with marble bases. The bathroom fixtures were all of the latest up to date style at the time, the lavatory being the same pattern as in the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. Each bedroom was enameled in white and contained a full-length French plated mirror in the door. The decorations in the building were elaborate and very beautiful, including the lighting fixtures and hardware trim.The entrance vestibules had mosaic tile floors and there was a telephone system from the vestibule to each flat and the inside vestibule door could be opened from each flat by an electric opener. There was a central vacuum cleaning system throughout the entire building, which was operated by the janitor. The janitor service included the cleaning of all rugs in each apartment once a week. There was a janitor’s flat in the basement and the janitor or his assistant were at the building all of the time. All entrance halls and stairs were lighted throughout the entire night with electric lights. A number of laundry rooms were built in the basement, along with storage lockers for the use of all the tenants. The building was steam heated and there was plenty of hot water for the use of all of the tenants, day or night all the year around. In the rear of the building, there were 13 garages which were rented to those tenants of the building who had autos. The garages were steam heated. In the center of the building on the Main Street side, in the first flat, or what is known as the English basement, there was a dance banquet hall, 15 X 52' in size, this room was very beautifully finished and lighted and was available for the use of all the tenants of the building. A well-equipped kitchen made easy the serving of refreshments, dressing rooms and lavatories also adjoined the ballroom. Card tables and chairs, a piano and a Victrola were some of the furnishings in the room. The Windsor Apartments had been totally rented before the first residents moved into the building in 1917. They would include many well to do residents of this city.

In 1916 before the Windsor Apartments were completed the partnership which existed between Sherman B. Letts and George M Bennett, 125 West State Street, was dissolved by mutual consent. Mr. Letts began in the real estate business here in 1906, forming a partnership with A. C. Horton. After being together over seven years, Horton retired on account of poor health and Letts conducted it alone until he became associated with Mr. Bennett. Letts purchased all of Bennett's holdings which permitted Bennett to retire from the firm with no responsibilities. This firm had been doing business since 1914 and previous to this time both men had extensive experience in the same line of work. They dealt in real estate, brokerage, home building, the sale of city and suburban lots and insurance and loans.In December 1924 Jan MacQueen of Kirkland, Illinois would purchase the Windsor from Sherman Letts. The sale also included three farms, one near Belvidere and the other two farms in DeKalb and Ogle counties. The new owner of the Windsor was not unknown to Rockford. He was a millionaire stock feeder at Kirkland and had extensive land holdings in Illinois, Florida and Michigan. Mr. MacQueen's summer home at Long Lake was one of the show places at the northern Wisconsin resort. In June 1957 the owner of the Windsor Apartments asked the city council for a change in zoning from C residential to local business so store fronts and offices could be installed at the ground floor level. The city council would turn the request down citing parking and traffic concerns.After declining in stature and the lack of maintenance, and altering some apartments into smaller units, under various owners over several decades the building was sold to Andrew Charles Properties in 1996. Clayton Andrews partnered with William Charles investments and with Hagney Architects, a firm that specializes in restoration, to restore the Windsor apartments to its former glory. During the one year project the old windows were replaced with double pane ones, the floors sanded, tiles polished, an upgraded electrical system with more outlets, all new kitchen cabinets and appliances were installed. In 2003 the property was sold to Barrington, Illinois based Terrace Realty who still owns the building today.

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Enjoy this week’s installment of TBT Rockford featuring the Windsor Apartment Building!