The Belcrest Apartments is an apartment building located at 5440 Cass Avenue in Detroit, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. It was built in 1926 as the Belcrest Hotel, designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1983, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1984.

History

The Belcrest Apartment Hotel was built in 1926 as a residential hotel, catering to wealthy tenants. The building exemplified what was, at the time, a novel style of living arrangement: an apartment building tha offered amenities normally associated with an hotel. Daily maid service and a restaurant on the premises set this apart from a conventional apartment building.

Architecture

The building was designed by Charles N. Agree

Charles N. Agree

Charles Nathanial Agree was an architect who held his practice in Detroit, Michigan.Agree moved to Detroit in 1909 at the age of 12. He began his firm in 1917, after he graduated from the Detroit Y.M.C.A Technical School. His first major commission came in 1921 to build the Whittier Hotel near...

in a T-shape. It is twelve stories high, constructed of concrete and steel and sheathed with brick and terra cotta. Three projecting bays surround the base of the T, emphasizing the vertical, while terra cotta cornices on the third, eleventh, and top floors emphasize the horizontal.