page_title: Cedar Glen Apartments
section_title: Construction of the building
hierarchical_section_title: Cedar Glen Apartments / Cedar Glen Apartments / Construction of the building
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking north from 11440 Cedar Glen Parkway in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. This building is part of the interconnected Cedar Glen Apartments. Owned and designed by prominent local architect Samuel E. Weis (a.k.a. Samuel E. White), they were completed in 1927. The complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 17, 1994.
context_page_description: The Cedar Glen Apartments are a historic apartment building located in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. Designed by prominent local architect Samuel H. Weis and completed in 1927, the building originally contained luxury apartments and served as a gateway to the more exclusive neighborhood of Cleveland Heights, on whose border the building is located. Threatened with demolition in 1992, the building was purchased by new owners and converted into condominiums.
  The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 17, 1994.
context_section_description: Despite the extensive development on the east (Cleveland Heights) side of Ambleside Drive, by 1910 no development had occurred in the area west of it (within the city of Cleveland). The first development here, Ambleside Apartments (now the University Manor skilled nursing facility), began construction in 1913 and was completed in 1914. It was an inexpensive, $50,000 ($1,300,000 in 2019 dollars), four-story, 16-unit apartment building designed by local architect Theodore Conner.
  In 1925, planning began on the Cedar Glen Apartments at 11424-11432 Cedar Glen Parkway. Owned and designed by prominent local architect Samuel E. Weis (a.k.a. Samuel E. White), it was one of the first apartment buildings to be erected in Cleveland in several years. Located just inside the Cleveland city limits at the corner of Ambleside Drive and Cedar Glen Parkway and facing the parkway, the structure was 15 feet (4.6 m) to 25 feet (7.6 m) above the road. With a then-unobstructed view of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Western Reserve University and Case Institute of Technology, Severance Hall, and University Circle, It was only a short distance south of Cleveland's Little Italy. The Plain Dealer newspaper called it one of the "most unusual sites" in the city.
  The building had a 335-foot (102 m) frontage on Cedar Glen Parkway, a 200-foot (61 m) frontage on Ambleside Drive. The building's access road was set back 30 feet (9.1 m) from Cedar Glen Parkway, and the structure's east wall 20 feet (6.1 m) from Ambleside. Ample vacant land at the rear of the building provided privacy. The first floor of the Georgian Revival-style building's exterior was clad in Indiana limestone, with the upper floors consisting of exposed brick with limestone trim at the corners and around the doorways. The windows were trimmed with stone. The building frame was steel, with walls, floors, and the roof of reinforced concrete. The cornice was topped by a balustrade consisting of terra cotta balusters and a stone railing. Stone urns rested atop the balustrade. The structure's exterior and interior masonry walls were certified by the Cleveland Clay League as using locally sourced materials, fireproof, and attractive. The E-shaped building had a garden forecourt 75 feet (23 m) deep and 100 feet (30 m) long. The apartment complex itself consisted of a six-story central tower equipped with an elevator, and two four-story walk-up wings (e.g., equipped with stairs but no elevator). Each wing, each connection, and the central tower all had their own entrances. The building had an underground 40-car garage with internal staircases (so patrons did not have to exit the garage to reach the interior of the building).
  As originally constructed, the Cedar Glen Apartments had 27 units ranging in size from four to eight rooms, some with servants' quarters. Intended as a luxury apartment, all the rooms were unusually large. Each bedroom had its own bathroom, and featured large windows. Each apartment had a fireplace of molded concrete, numerous closets, and enclosed radiators, and came equipped with the latest electronic work-saving appliances (such as a frost free refrigerator, dishwasher, and stove exhaust hood). The central tower was topped with a 4,000-square-foot (370 m²), two-story, 12-room, six-bath penthouse. Each room in the penthouse had 20-foot (6.1 m) ceilings. The upper floor of the penthouse consisted of two bedrooms and a bathroom.
  The final cost of the Cedar Glen Apartments was $650,000 ($9,600,000 in 2019 dollars), slightly higher than its projected cost of $600,000 ($8,700,000 in 2019 dollars), and the building was completed in July 1927.
caption: The building once had an unobstructed view of University Circle, but mature trees now block the vista.
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