As foreshadowed in my recent entry about Regent Place apartments, I returned to the vicinity to take a picture in front of Regent Place’s next door neighbor, the Regent Arms apartments. This is on the east side of Regent between Michigan and Kalamazoo (100 block).

The southern stamp.

The stamp is a C. Gossett stamp from 1962. Actually, there are a pair of them, framing a short run of sidewalk (which is interrupted by a later Cantu & Sons stamp in the middle).

Looking north, with the southern stamp closest to the camera. The light colored block two away is a later Cantu & Sons stamp; the northern stamp is past that.

This stamp pre-dates the Regent Arms, which was built in 1966, in case that isn’t obvious from looking at it. When I first lived here, it was painted dark brown and had a weathered sign with its name on the front. Later it got its current paint job, which coordinates it with Regent Place but, I think, suits it less. I think that is also when it lost its identity as “Regent Arms” and just got its street address on the front instead. The landlord’s Web site still uses the Regent Arms name. I’m not likely to stop.

The northern stamp.

I do know what was here when this pavement was stamped. A while back I downloaded a set of real estate cards from the 1950s and 60s for properties on Regent Street, part of the digitized local history collection of the Capital Area District Library. While trying to figure out what house had previously been on the Regent Place site (it turns out no house was ever located there), I discovered the card for a house on the site of the Regent Arms. It was an American Foursquare house, very typical of the east side. The owner was one Ruth Clippert whose reason for selling was “doesn’t need.” The house was vacant. From this I infer that it was an investment property.

(Update half an hour later: I have discovered something that leads me to retract the “investment property” theory. That is this clipping from the Lansing State Journal of January 23, 1941, reporting on a wedding reception held at the home of “Mrs. Martin Clippert” – the address given is the one for Ruth Clippert in the real estate card. Was Mrs. Martin Ruth, or a relative? Either way it seems this was someone selling a family home.)

The neatly typed card has a handwritten addendum written crosswise over it: “Sold 1-5-65.” That was probably the sale to whomever demolished it to build the Regent Arms, as according to the landlord’s Web site, the apartment building “was designed by Architect Howard DeWolf in 1965 and built in 1966.”

The boldly modernist hulk of the Regent Arms. On the right side, the building hangs preciously over empty space, allowing for parking underneath. This allows the building to come impressively close to the boundary of the lot.