Ames Place

A charming, quiet, neighborhood of about 200 single family homes. Ames Place was filed for the record as a neighborhood on December 7, 1914 and is governed by an indenture that dates to October 7, 1914.  Situated on 53 acres, Ames Place hosts about 200 single family homes. The neighborhood is made up of the 6600, 6800, and 6900 blocks of the south side of Kingsbury, both north and south sides of Waterman, Pershing, and University Drive and the 300 and 400 blocks of Melville. According to Esley Hamilton’s Ames Place: A Brief History of Its Planning and Development, “the appearance of the neighborhood is largely dictated by the indentures, which require residences to be a minimum of 2 ½ stories tall, or two stories with a hip roof, to be of masonry construction, or cement on metal lath and to have the same appearance all the way around, and to be used for no other purpose than an exclusive private residence. University Drive is part of Ames Place, but it was originally opened to the construction of apartment houses. All but a few houses were built within a period of twelve years. More than half the houses, 114, were built by nine contractors. There are several instances of two or more homes built to the same plan, but there is little sense of repetition because of the differences in materials and details.