Bringing Back the Luster to the Grace

Driving along Adams Boulevard near Hill Street, motorists may be struck by a rather incongruous sight: the Grace Apartment Hotel, a white five-story colonial structure with a wide, pillared porch and a circular driveway set off by two palm trees that would look more at home on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach then just south of downtown.

Back in 1906, when it opened as the Darby Apartment Hotel, the building was a showplace. It featured a large, elegant marble lobby with a soaring ceiling, elaborate public rooms and two pools (one for humans, one for fish).

In recent decades, the hotel fell on hard times. Now, a million-dollar restoration, set to be completed by August 1997, will bring back much of the luster to the Grace.

The building is owned by the United House of Prayer, a nondenominational church established in 1929 in Massachusetts. According to Grace manager J. Smith, a former minister of the church, the church has a congregation of over 1 million people in 120 U.S cities. Most of the Grace’s tenants, who rent by the month, are members of that church, but church membership is not a requirement to rent there.

“The church goes to the roughest neighborhoods of cities and establishes itself,” Smith said.

The church took over the Grace in the late 1940s, but for the last 20 years the place has fallen into disrepair.

“The renovation is not to increase the market value of the building, it is to simply upgrade the living conditions for the tenants” said Ed Dickson, who is directing the work for a South Carolina-based construction company.

Although some tenants have been shuffled around the building while their unit is undergoing repair, most are delighted by the project.

The Grace, which has 54 units that rent for $255 a month, will get new paint, windows, carpeting, electrical systems and landscaping.

The lobby will be restored to its former glory with a marble floor and an intricately detailed molded ceiling.

Though much of the surrounding neighborhood is awash in graffiti, there is not one gang or tagger name splattered on the walls of the Grace.

“This place has an aura about it,” said Dickson. “People around here seem to respect it.”

Tenant Timothy Bonner, 28, agrees that the troublemakers of the area don’t bother people from the Grace.

“They stay away. I don’t know why, but they do,” said Bonner.

“I love it here,” said Geraldine Reid, 60, who has been staying at the Grace for 15 years. “I can’t wait till the work is done. My place is gonna be real pretty.”