Our story
Railroad doctor, boarding house, funeral parlor, dance studio and, since 1998, home.
Our story
Dr. Amos Hartwell built the house for his wife and eight children, with stained glass shipped from St. Louis and a porch long enough to sleep the whole family on hot nights. He planted the first dogwoods along the lane the following spring.
After the Hartwells, the house took in railroad boarders, then served as a funeral parlor for twenty years, then briefly taught tap to half the girls on the north side. Every chapter left a mark, including the scuffs on the ballroom floor we decided to keep.
Our founders bought the house in 1997 and spent a year bringing it back. They added an elevator, a commercial kitchen and the first twenty garden cottages, and opened Dogwood Lane to its first residents in the fall of 1998.
Residents asked for homes without stairs or yards, so we built sixty apartments around a courtyard and a greenhouse, and planted the camellia walk between them.
A hundred homes, sixty-three dogwoods and the same pot of tea every afternoon. The stained glass still throws color across the stairs at four o'clock, and somebody is always there to see it.
Ratings & recognition · sample
Call or text Celia, or book a tour online. In spring, ask for the dogwood walk.