The Warner

Slender Queen Anne style apartment building with first floor retail entered off of Chapel Street, as well as adjacent Sherman's Alley. Since purchased by the 'Shops at Yale', the first floor retail facing Chapel Street has undergone significant renovation to restore original storefront glazing/paneling in keeping with the buildling's Queen Anne style and detailing. Currently, the building is fully occupied and storefront retail on Chapel St is thriving. 

Built by Henry A. Warner, the apartments were situated on a plot of land known as 'The Warner Block' located between College and York Streets along Chapel St, directly across from Yale University's Old Campus.  Originally the block was owned by New Haven manufacturing tycoon, Gaius F. Warner, who's erected a mansion and planted the remainder of the plot with trees and ornamental shrubs.  As Chapel Street continued to grow into a major retail and pedestrian thoroughfare outlining the Yale campus, Henry Warner saw the potential for substantial profit in developing the family's block, and erected the student apartments adjacent to his father's mansion.  After his father's death, the mansion would eventually be purchased by the Union League around the turn of the century, who would reconstruct the front facade, extending it towards Chapel street to be in line with the front facade of the student apartments, thus creating Sherman's Alley. 

This building served as the first ever off campus student apartment in New Haven. The apartments were a response to demands at the end of the 19th century for students in Cambridge, MA and New Haven interested in living 'off campus' outside of the Universities' residential colleges.  Equipped with the finest of modernized amenities for the day, the original building included a restaurant, elevator, telephones and a barber shop. The apartments, originally listed for Yale Students and families, were converted into a hotel in the early 20th century when Yale University began to enforce a residency requirement that all students live on campus.  The building thus became a precedent design for the 'multiple occupancy structure' which would eventually become the norm for typical modern hotels and apartments.

The building's first two stories are fused to neighboring 1056 Chapel Street (housing the architecture studios of Pelli Clarke Pelli).  Sherman's Alley separates the building from the neighboring Union League Cafe, which originally served as the house of Henry A. Warner's father, Gaius F. Warner (founder of G. F. Warner & Co. Manufacturing, one of the largest manufacturing companies in New Haven at the turn of the century).  The building is located on a section of Historic Chapel Street in which the sidewalk is paved with slate, while brick is used to pave Sherman's Alley.  Behind a wooden sign suspended over the alley entrance on which is inscribed "Specialty Shops Sherman's Alley" with characteristic gold filled engraving, lights are strung between the adjacent Union League Cafe and the second floor of 1044 Chapel as an attempt to further beautify the outdoor space.  Most recently in October 2016, work was begun to extend the brick pathway of Sherman's Alley into the Crown Street parking lot, allowing for further landscaping and curation of the alley and its rear approach.  Parking is located behind the building's annex and can be accessed by foot through Sherman's Alley or by car off of Crown Street.

Slender Queen Anne style apartment building with first floor retail entered off of Chapel Street, as well as adjacent Sherman's Alley.  Two columns of wooden bay windows extrude from the cut stone facade on both Chapel Street and Sherman's Alley from the second through the fifth floors. Each floor of bays is uniquely accented, capped on Chapel Street by two covered open air balconies on the fifth floor.  An iron fire escape is framed by the bay windows onto Sherman's Alley.  Apartments located in an extended 3 story annex behind the building extend into a parking lot entered off of Crown Street.  Since purchased by the 'Shops at Yale', the first floor retail facing Chapel Street has undergone significant renovation to restore original storefront glazing/paneling in keeping with the buildling's Queen Anne style and detailing.  Currently, the building is fully occupied and storefront retail on Chapel St is thriving.  Empty retail off of Sherman's Alley is undergoing restoration, though recently some of the antique glazing was vandalized.  

The condition of the building interior is dated but fair.  The original Chapel Street entrance to the apartment lobby and grand staircase has been cut off to allow for maximum retail square footage along Chapel Street.  Thus, apartments are entered off of Sherman's Alley.  Demising walls have been added to remodel individual apartments in the main building, and a number of fire doors have been successively installed at entrances to the original building staircase.  The building's elevator is located in its original core, complete with the original iron floor indicator dial above the threshold on the first floor.  Original wood flooring can be found in a handful of apartments in the main building, while most apartments including all those in the annex are carpeted.  The three story annex currently contains two story two bedroom units, whereas the main building contains single floor units and loft style units on the sixth floor.  Whereas the three story annex and six story main building were both built in 1892 and successively converted into use as multifamily apartments and later a hotel, the annex originally connected to the main building on the second and third floors through social rooms such as the 'billiard room' and 'parlor'.  These rooms would later be re-purposed as apartments in the latest renovation of the building, thus limiting the connection of the main building and annex to a corridor on the second floor.  The the annex currently benefits from central heating and air, while the main building still uses its original steam radiator system and does not provide AC.  

Connecticut Historical Commission (Historic Resources Inventory)

Dana Scrapbook (Vol. I)

Sanborn Map Co. Map of New Haven Vol. I (1923)

Related Links

http://www.elmcampus.com/apartments/Chapel/1044chapel/

http://theshopsatyale.com/loccitane/

http://theshopsatyale.com/wave/

http://theshopsatyale.com/woodland-coffee-and-tea/