| Historic Name: |
Price-Rite Grocery |
Common Name: |
Hen Sen Herb Company |
| Style: |
Commercial |
Neighborhood: |
North Beacon Hill |
| Built By: |
unknown |
Year Built: |
1925 |
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| Significance |
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This is one of Beacon Hill's relatively few apartment/commercial buildings, and has served an important community function since 1925. It was for many years a grocery store, known in the 1930s as Shepherd's Price-Rite Grocery and, in the 1950s-60s, as the U-Save Grocery. The store now sells Chinese herbs.
Scattered development began on Beacon Hill in the 1890s, but activity increased after 1898 when the city purchased 235 acres on the hill for a reservoir and cemetery. In 1901 the city chose what is now Beacon Avenue for Pipeline Number One from the Cedar River Watershed. A second parallel pipeline was compled in 1908, along with two reservoirs near Beacon Avenue South and SW Alaska Street. In 1911 the city set aside the rest of the property as a park, opening a golf course in 1915. Significant growth, including extension of the streetcar line, occurred in the 1920s, when these stores were built. The local high school, Cleveland, opened in 1927.
During the 1950s-60s this was known as the Kelly Apartments. The owner in the 1930s was an Italian, Giovanni Paranzi, but the building has had primarily Chinese owners since the 1950s, showing the changing demographics of the Beacon Hill community. The building has a distinctive roofline, with red terra cotta tiles supported by prominent corbels. There are no records on the original architect.
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| Appearance |
| This red brick-clad building is unusual for its slanted red tiled roofs, separated into three sections by the brick parapet. The roofs are supported by over-sized decorative corbels. The storefronts have original recessed entries with wood-and-glass doors with transoms. One section of display windows has older aluminum sash; the other has wood sash. The bulkhead is newer, with Roman brick. The original suspended canopy remains. Second floor windows on the front (east) are newer aluminum sliders in wood surrounds; windows on the north elevation are original one-over-one wood sash. At the rear is a small (six foot deep) addition clad with marblecrete and vertical wood siding, with aluminum windows. The south elevation has aluminum sliding. |
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