History of Central Gardens
The Central Gardens Association, founded 1967, is an organization open to all residents of the Central Gardens Historic District. The purpose of the Association, as stated in the charter, include the following:
- To cooperately maintain, enhance and foster a healthy community.
- To maintain the quality and integrity of the area’s homes.
- To perserve the historical quality of the area.
- To promote the neighborhood to prospective residents.
- To aid residents with real estate problems
- To encourage home ownerships to improve their homes.
The district, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is composed of approximately 83 blocks, 1540 structures and 511 acres in midtown Memphis. The great majority of the structures are single family residences; the area also contains multifamily dwelling units, churches and schools. The district is significant for its architecture, community planning and influential residents.The most intensive development of the district began in 1900 and concluded in 1930, when the area had achieved most of its present density, order and character. The residential developers created more than 40 individual subdivisions that now are known collectively as Central Gardens. They provided many of the amenities which have become standard in modern community planning. Such enlightened practices as hierarchical lot sizes and setbacks, both relating to the width of the individual street, created a strong sense of spatial order and coherence.
In architectural style, the district is highly eclectic. It reflects the prevailing tastes among early twentieth century middle class Memphians, and the best in urban residential community planning and architecture of that period. The wide variety of architectural styles works well because of uniform setbacks, cornice heights and massing, and the characteristic use of such details as front porches, bay window, porte cocheres, and leaded glass. The building materials include brick, limestone, stucco, clapboard, and wooden shingles, with many houses constructed of a mix of two or three of these. Workmanship is of a consistently high quality, and the detailing is extremely rich and well-conceived. With only a few exceptions, the architecture is more “mid-American” than “Southern”; according to architectural historian Vincent Scully, Central Gardens houses bear a closer resemblance to those in Oak Park, Illinois rather than to those in Natchez, Mississippi.
The most prevalent architectural forms found in the district are the four-square and bungalow. Principal styles include Colonial Revival, Craftsman, Eclectic, Mediterranean Revival, Mission, Neoclassical, Prairie, Queen Anne, Tudor Revival, and Shingle. While this architecture is fairly common, the superior quality of design, workmanship, materials and details is significantly uncommon. The mix of architectural styles contained in a typical district block achieves a very strong compositional harmony because virtually all houses adhere to the same rules of massing, scale, and cornice height setback and lot size.