Nelle E. Peters, Prolific Apartment Designer

Architect Nelle Elizabeth Peters (1884 – 1974; née Nichols) was well-known in the 1920s for her efficient, economical, practical, and pleasing designs of numerous low- and mid-rise apartment and hotel buildings in Kansas City, Missouri and beyond.

In 1927, Building Age called Peters’ Ambassador Hotel “one of the best recent examples of a combined apartment and commercial hotel.” Without mentioning the architect by name, the publication lauded the flexibility of the single room units, calling Peters’ design a “delight” and “a revelation to designers of this type of building.” Peters’ room plans included a closet designed to receive a “disappearing bed”—a bed that could rotate to vertical and roll out of sight—thereby transforming the single-room units from a bedroom into a parlor.

See the floor plan and photos of this design and read more about Nelle Peters’ career, including how she got her first job, her designs for apartment houses in Kansas City and throughout the Midwest, the historic district named after her, and her side job creating crossword puzzles.

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