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Inventory Form
NR Nomination

LOCATION AND PROPERTY NAME
address:929-935 SW Salmon St historic name:Wheeldon Annex
Portland, Multnomah County current/other names:Fountain Place Apartments
assoc addresses:
block/lot/tax lot:
location descr: twnshp/rng/sect/qtr sect:1S 1E 3
PROPERTY CHARACTERISTICS
resource type:Building height (stories):5.0 total elig resources:1 total inelig resources:0
elig evaluation: eligible/significant NR Status: Individually Listed
prim constr date:1911 second date:1914 date indiv listed:03/04/2020
primary orig use: Multiple Dwelling orig use comments:
second orig use: Hotel
primary style: Late 20th Century: Other prim style comments:
secondary style: Italianate sec style comments:
primary siding: Brick:Other/Undefined siding comments:
secondary siding:
plan type: architect:Ernest Boyd MacNaughton and Herbert E. Raymond
builder:
comments/notes:
GROUPINGS / ASSOCIATIONS
Not associated with any surveys or groupings.
SHPO INFORMATION FOR THIS PROPERTY
NR date listed: 03/04/2020
ILS survey date:
RLS survey date:
Federal Tax Program
Status Start Compl
Complete 02/03/2020  2023
106 Project(s): None
Special Assess Project(s): None
ARCHITECTURAL / PROPERTY DESCRIPTION
(Includes expanded description of the building/property, setting, significant landscape features, outbuildings and alterations)
Constructed in two distinct phases in 1911, the Fountain Place Apartments were originally named the Wheeldon Annex. The building occupies a quarter-block lot in downtown Portland, Oregon, at the corner of SW Salmon Street and SW 10th Avenue. The Wheeldon Annex is one of the earliest surviving examples of a U-shaped residential apartment/hotel in downtown Portland. It is a 5-story, 45,580-square foot brick structure with intact Italian Renaissance Revival features, such as a decorative bracketed cornice, a buff brick body with corbeled details and rusticated base, and an upper level treated as a paneled frieze. Character-defining wood double-hung multi-pane windows have been retained throughout and appear to be well maintained. Alterations to the exterior have been quite minimal, and include the abandonment and alteration of the door on the Salmon Street façade of the west wing; the alteration of the main door, steps and railing; the removal of some decorative brick elements in the courtyard; and the alteration of some windows. The interior of the Wheeldon Annex has good integrity; although many of the eighty units have been altered or divided, the general layout with U-shaped double-loaded corridors at every floor remains, and many units still contain at least some original features, materials, and layouts. These include primary rooms with original oak flooring and in some cases, the original built-in furniture with pull-out beds and fold-down desks; kitchens with wood cabinetry and trim; and bathrooms with claw- foot tubs and built-in ventilation and cabinetry. While many units have been divided, the alterations (primarily in the mid-1930s but continuing into the 1990s) have generally left original features in place. The building therefore overall retains a high level of integrity.
HISTORY
(Chronological, descriptive history of the property from its construction through at least the historic period - preferably to the present)
The Wheeldon Annex is locally significant under National Register Criterion C in the area of Architecture because it is a highly intact work of the well-regarded Portland architectural partnership of MacNaughton and Raymond, and an early and intact example of the courtyard apartment building style in Portland. he period of significance is 1911, the date of construction. The building is one of the earliest downtown examples of a U-shaped residential apartment block form, which later proliferated across Portland, including in the downtown setting. It was completed in 1911, using a U-shaped layout first seen as early as 1907 in high-class apartments in the exclusive “Nob Hill” residential district to the west of downtown Portland. The Wheeldon Annex is associated with Portland’s exponential growth during the ten-year period starting with the Lewis and Clark Exposition in 1905. During this time, apartment buildings were introduced in Portland as a new type of construction and use was targeted toward the middle and upper classes. The building displays distinctive characteristics of the Italian Renaissance Revival style in its division into three parts; the rusticated base, middle, and decorative cornice. The Wheeldon Annex was conceived as a high-end venture; and its use of modern built-in, fold-away furniture, single bathrooms for every apartment, dumbwaiters, and tenant services gave the building a highly respectable and up-to-date reputation as soon as it was completed in 1911. While not all of these interior features, especially in individual units, are still present, the building still has good integrity overall. The building is still in its original and primary residential use, although it no longer has “hotel” functions. The building maintains its original location, design, setting, materials, and workmanship, and still conveys its overall historic feeling and association.
RESEARCH INFORMATION
Title Records Census Records Property Tax Records Local Histories
Sanborn Maps Biographical Sources SHPO Files Interviews
Obituaries Newspapers State Archives Historic Photographs
City Directories Building Permits State Library
Local Library: University Library:
Historical Society: Other Respository:
Bibliography:
City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and Portland Parks and Recreation. City of Portland Civic Planning, Development, & Public Works, 1851-1965: A Historic Context. Portland, Oregon, 2009. Accessed online at https://www.portlandoregon.gov/parks/article/299256. City of Portland Bureau of Planning. Midtown Blocks Historic Assessment, September 2004. Claussen, Walter. “Two and Three-Room Apartments of the Pacific Coast,” The American Architect Vol. CVII, No.2062, June 30, 1915, 410-412; 417. Demuth, Kimberly, A. Carlson, K. Lakin, and K. Smith. Clyde Hotel. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, United States Department of the Interior, 1993. Horn, C. L., “Efficiency in Apartment House Design,” The American Architect, Vol. CIX No. 2089, January 5, 1916, 1-9. Horn, C. L., “Managing Pacific Coast Apartments,” Buildings and Building Management, Vol. XVL, No. 6, June 1916, 30-34; 56 MacColl, E. Kimbark with Harry H. Stein. Merchants, Money, & Power: The Portland Establishment 1843-1913. The Georgian Press, 1988. MacColl, E. Kimbark. The Shaping of a City: Business and Politics in Portland, Oregon 1885 to 1915. Portland, Oregon: The Georgian Press, 1976. The Oregonian [also the Sunday Oregonian, the Morning Oregonian], various dates. Ritz, Richard E. Architects of Oregon: A Biographical Dictionary of Architects Deceased—19th and 20th Centuries. Portland, Oregon: Lair Hill Publishing, 2002. Teague, Edward H. The Apartment House in Portland, Oregon: An Introductory History, 2016. Accessed online at https://sites.google.com/site/portlandapartmenthistory/home