firm active: 1907-1921

minneapolis, minnesota :: chicago, illinois
philadelphia, pennsylvania :: portland, oregon


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Duplex Apartment, project
Purcell and Feick
Minneapolis, Minnesota   1907

Parabiographies entry, Volume for 1907
Text by William Gray Purcell

Job Date (in Parabiographies): February 1, 1907

Duplex House

That is to say a five-room apartment on each of two floors with separated tenant fired heating plants in the basement.

Working drawings - advertising adventure.

Functional in plan and construction. A circular dining room was our attempt to loosen machine-age and "craftsman-mission" forms, then a vogue, and still keep a sense of creative design.

This property offered good property management economics. Similar buildings were built in Minneapolis by the hundreds during the next ten years and proved excellent income producers. "The Wisconsin Syndicate," a British investment cartel, standardized this type and built them on every vacant close-in lot they could buy, on that investment principle of the old Lords of London, "Never sell real estate - rent it." Doubtless these British investment immigrants still own these apartment properties, and the growth of Minneapolis has added millions to their unearned land value.
 

      Collection: William Gray Purcell Papers, Northwest Architectural Archives, University of Minnesota [AR:B4d1.1]
research courtesy mark hammons