PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY LAUDERDALE LIBRARY
A 1937 postcard shows how the Parkview Hotel Apartments looked in the early days, when the building was red brick. Note the very snazzy cars parked outside the entrance.
Dear Vance: In September I attended an auction of items from the Parkview Manor. I didn’t know the place had closed, and I also never knew the old building had first opened as a hotel. Can you share its history? — C.D., Memphis.
Dear C.D.: When the Parkview Hotel Apartments opened on Poplar in 1923, at the southwest corner of Overton Park (hence the building’s name), it was the first major hotel located outside of Downtown. Memphians can’t take credit for that distinction, however. The St. Louis firm of Barnett, Hayes, and Barnett owned and designed the 10-story property, an almost identical twin to the Gatesworth Hotel in their city (still standing today, but part of a complex called 275 on the Park).
Most Memphians learned of this impressive project when they opened the January 29, 1923, edition of The Commercial Appeal and discovered a half-page rendering of the proposed building. On one hand, you’d think they’d be happy a developer was finally making use of the neglected site of Fairyland, an amusement park that burned to the ground in 1908. On the other hand, residents of the lovely homes lining the streets west of Overton Park opposed such a “skyscraper” looming over them, and they worried about the traffic it would bring.
Now let me clarify something here. This was not an ordinary hotel, with a steady stream of out-of-town guests checking in and out. Instead, as you can tell from its full name, the Parkview was actually an apartment building, with only 164 units (later expanded to 195). By comparison, The Peabody, which opened two years later, had more than 400 rooms. Residents stayed at the Parkview for weeks, months, and even years. Traffic wasn’t really a problem when the place first opened, since few Memphians owned cars in the early 1920s. As the automobile business here grew, however, the Parkview built its own parking garage on the south side of Poplar. Many years later, the hotel added a parking lot behind the hotel.
Although readers today consider Overton Park the heart of Midtown, in the 1920s Parkview newspaper ads touted the virtues of living “far removed from city dust and din. As delightfully situated as a resort hotel — with cool breezes, flowers, lawns, and the wooded land of Overton Park at its doors — the Parkview offers all the advantages of country life.”
Residents could choose from one-bedroom units to six-room suites. Parkview ads explained, “Each apartment is completely furnished. Silver, glassware, linens, as well as light, heat, refrigeration, and maid and bellboy service are included in the modest rental. Everything except food is provided.” What’s more, residents needn’t worry about such pesky details as “laundry bills, furniture bills, coal bills, gas bills, water bills, ice bills, or lightbulbs.” Bachelor apartments cost $75 a month, and “completely furnished kitchenette apartments are as low as $120.”
But let’s go back to the beginning. Construction on the $1.7 million building began in February 1923, but the work apparently took longer than expected. The owners first announced a grand opening in September, then postponed it to October, and then changed it to New Year’s Eve of that year. By then, only five floors were completely finished, but the owners invited the public to tour “the entire first floor … and the most beautiful dining room in the city.” Afterwards, “an elaborate dinner will be served to a limited number of people, with music and dancing.”
“The Parkview has that air of quiet distinction that isn’t born of crowds and confusion. It’s clean, well-kept, and the friendly, interesting people who live here all contribute much toward good living.” — from a newspaper ad in the 1940s
Residents began to move into the Parkview while it was still under construction, and that’s when neighbors’ complaints became more specific. They couldn’t do anything about the size of the building, but its residents were a different story. In his Commercial Appeal column, historian Paul R. Coppock noted that neighbors griped about “bottles containing illegal liquids discarded in their shrubbery … and some of the high-living apartment dwellers neglected to draw their shades.”
Look, I still feel bad about that. Sometimes my family hasn’t behave the way they should. My grandparents, Maximillian and Maxine Lauderdale, were among the first residents of the Parkview, and they treated it like a party house. Oh, the shame. When the management finally evicted them for their wild antics, the hotel’s neighbors breathed a sigh of relief.
From the beginning, ground-floor retail bays along Poplar Avenue were home to a bakery, a gown shop, and other establishments. The two that most Memphians remember, I bet, are the Parkview Beauty Shop and the Parkview Pharmacy, complete with a marble-topped soda fountain. Both opened in the 1930s.
Clara Gould kept the beauty salon running until the 1970s. Frank Russell ran the pharmacy and often gave hand-cut roses from the garden of his home on Oakley to his customers. He closed the soda fountain in 1960, explaining “it took up so much room and was hard to run profitably,” but customers could still grab a quick meal or milkshake from the Parkview Café, which offered “the efficient service and tastefully cooked food of the better resort hotels.” Diners could even enjoy live music there on Sunday evenings.
A 1923 newspaper story conveyed the eye-popping elegance of the interior. “The furniture on the ground floor will cost $50,000, with one of the lounges finished in the French style, and another in the Tudor design. The main lobby will be of the Italian Renaissance period. A special feature will be a Mah Jongg Room, in which all of the red lacquer furniture will be imported from China, and two young ladies will be brought from San Francisco to teach the difficult game.”
A particularly nice touch outside was the terraced grand entrance, with a long awning that stretched from the front doors to the street. This became a popular backdrop for photographs of well-known people and fancy products such as cars. As early as 1924, a newspaper ad for local Ford dealers, in fact, posed an imposing Lincoln sedan in front of the Parkview, and years later, Oakley Ford showcased a very unusually painted Thunderbird (shown here) in the same location.
Over the years, the Parkview became a rather exclusive address. Famous Memphians who called it home included Piggly Wiggly founder Clarence Saunders; Wesley and Nelle Halliburton, parents of the best-selling author and adventurer, Richard Halliburton; and (much more recently, of course) the world-famous photographer William Eggleston, whose life and career are showcased in the cover story of our November issue. After all, as the hotel ads reminded everyone, “The Parkview has that air of quiet distinction that isn’t born of crowds and confusion. It’s clean, well-kept, and the friendly, interesting people who live here all contribute much toward good living.”
I’m sure they did, but for a while, it seemed the building wasn’t going to last ten years after it opened. When the Great Depression swept over the land, many people moved out of what was (by 1920s standards) an expensive place, and occupancy rates dropped to 50 percent. A holding company, the Parkview Bondholders Protective Committee, took ownership of the building, somehow managed to keep it going, and it survived those lean times.
In addition to the revenues provided by its regular occupants, it also attracted all sorts of social events — fraternity and sorority dances, bridge club matches, weddings, receptions, birthday parties — whoever needed the Wedgwood Dining Room, Azalea Room (better for dancing), and other meeting spaces.
I suppose I could provide a day-by-day — or year-by-year — account of various activities that took place at the Parkview, but I’d rather not. Instead, I’ll jump ahead to 1965, when a church group, Presbyterian Services, Inc., purchased the hotel. They changed the name to Parkview Manor (later dropping “Manor”), and converted it into a retirement home. Nobody under the age of 62 could live there. Instead of ads promoting a “resort” lifestyle, now the emphasis was on “religious, cultural, and education activities.” I believe this is also when somebody decided the red-brick landmark looked better slathered in white paint.
The Parkview operated under various owners, most recently the Florida-based Starling Group, until August 2020, when new investors took over. Forge Partners, headquartered in California, purchased the property for $4.8 million. They plan to renovate the building inside and out, working with the Memphis firm, Designshop, whose projects include the Edge Motor Museum, the Grizzlies Training Center, the Grand Carousel pavilion at the Children’s Museum, and lots more around here. That explains the auction conducted in September, which mainly cleared out tired furniture and outdated kitchen equipment.
Don’t worry; that fine old building isn’t going anywhere. After all, next year, the Parkview celebrates its 100th birthday.
Got a question for Vance?
Email: askvance@memphismagazine.com
Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis magazine, P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101