A building arranged in three or more suites of connecting rooms, each suite designed for independent housekeeping, but with certain mechanical conveniences, as heat, light, or elevator-service, furnished in common to all the families occupying the building. Legally, there is no distinction, in the United States, between an apartment house and any other tenement. Popularly, the apartment differs from the tenement in the greater elegance of architectural finish, in the larger number of conveniences, and in the greater complexity of mechanical service furnished to all tenants from a central plant.

Midway, in popular usage, between the tenement house on the one hand, which is the home of the poor, and the apartment house on the other, whose annual rentals place it beyond the means of those with moderate incomes, stands the Flat, which, like the cottage of the suburb, is designed for people of moderate means. The distinction, however, between a flat and an apartment, is not well defined, and the term apartment is often applied to any well-appointed flat. In the article on "Apartments" in the Dictionary of Architecture and Building (New York, 1902), the term is limited to those suites of rooms for independent housekeeping which rent for more than $300 per annum.

The typical flat or less expensive apartment, in New York City consists of a parlor, two or more bedrooms, besides the servant's bedroom, a dining-room, bathroom, and kitchen. These rooms either open directly into each other or are connected by a private hall. Ordinarily, they are arranged one behind the other, according to the rectangular shape of the ordinary city lot, and are reached by a common stairway, and often by an elevator. The provisions are brought up by a dumb-waiter or freight elevator. Light and air for the interior rooms are obtained by means of interior courts or air shafts. Of course, this general plan is subject to many modifications, depending on the size and shape of the house and the number of flats on a floor. Flats are usually heated by steam or hot air and lighted by gas or electricity.

Hot water is frequently supplied. In apartments the rooms are susceptible of much greater flexibility in arrangement than in flats, as such buildings are usually built over several lots, and frequently cover an entire block. The number of services furnished by a central plant to all the tenants is also greatly increased. An apartment hotel differs from an apartment house in that only living rooms are provided for the different families, who eat in a common dining-room, as do the guests of an ordinary hotel. In some of the newer and more elaborate apartment houses of New York there is a restaurant in the building, where families may eat meals or not, as they choose, there being a separate dining-room and kitchen in each apartment as well.

Historical Development ( Apartment Houses).

In the United States, their development began with the rush to the cities which followed the Civil War. The chief causes which have led to their rapidly increasing popularity are: (1) The great congestion of population within a limited area in our large cities, which makes separate houses more and more impracticable: (2) the advantage of enjoying such common services as elevator, heat, artificial light, and hot water independent of the kitchen range, which can be furnished a group of families in a single building at much less cost than if those families were separated in isolated homes; (3) the migratory tendency among city dwellers which makes them prefer the easily vacated apartment to the more permanent house; and (4) the smaller amount of domestic service required in an apartment, which, in these days of high-priced and unsatisfactory servants, is perhaps the most important consideration of all.

During the past few years, large numbers of apartment houses of the highest grade have been built in all large American cities, and have become popular among the most wealthy and luxurious classes of the people. A description of a single one of these highly developed modern structures will give an idea of the whole class. The following account of an apartment house built in 1899, on upper Broadway, New York, is based on a description contained in the Engineering Record for January 20, 1900; Apartments in this building rent at from $2500 to $3000 annually. The building itself covers an entire block, and is fireproof in its construction. The main entrance leads into a vestibule, beyond which is a large hall and general reception-room where hall boys are in attendance. At the rear of the hall are the elevators which lead to general halls on each floor.

Each apartment consists of a parlor, library, dining-room, kitchen, butler's pantry, servant's room, bathroom, servant's bathroom, and a number of bedrooms. Gas-ranges are used for cooking, so that neither coal nor ashes are encountered. The built-in refrigerators are kept at the proper degree of coldness by means of a refrigerating plant in the basement, thus excluding ice, also, from the apartments. Hot as well as cold water is furnished. There is an arrangement in connection with the dining-room radiators for plate-warming as the apartments are heated by steam. The house is furnished with both gas and electric-light fixtures. Electricity is generated in the building, and is furnished to the tenants free until midnight, after which they must depend for light upon gas at their own expense.

Every apartment is provided with a telephone from a private branch exchange. Household provisions are distributed by a freight elevator, and there is a separate servants' stairway. The mechanical plant which furnishes steam, hot water, electricity, and refrigeration to the building is situated in the basement. Connected with it is an apparatus for drying clothes. This consists of a series of clothes dryers, heat being derived from a number of steam coil pipes and the air being circulated by an exhaust fan. In this and other high-class apartment houses an elaborate ventilating system is provided . In some of the most recent houses the sleeping-rooms for the servants are grouped together upon the top floor. Occasionally a barber shop within the building is added to the list of conveniences accessible to its occupants.

It is interesting to compare such an American dwelling as the one just described with a French apartment house of the same grade. In Paris, the height of buildings is limited by law to five stories, so that it is impossible for a single structure to accommodate the same number of families as in America, and hence the central mechanical plant must be less elaborate or, pro rata, more expensive. As a matter of fact, Parisians are only beginning to avail themselves of conveniences which American city dwellers have long considered essential. Hot air instead of steam heat is universal, a supply of hot water is seldom furnished, and only within a few years have adequate water-closets and other toilet facilities been enjoyed. The rooms of a Parisian apartment, however, are likely to be larger, and greater in number, than in an American apartment of the same grade.

Prominent in the arrangement of every suite is the principal bedroom belonging to the mistress of the house, which is larger in comparison with the other rooms, and faces the street. Opening upon this bedroom is the boudoir or dressing-room. Beside the other bedrooms are the drawing-room or salon, the billiard-room, dining-room, and the butler's pantry, which separates the dining-room from the kitchen. The kitchen in proportions and importance ranks next to the principal bedroom. The contrast is striking between such a suite of rooms and an American apartment, for in the latter the bedrooms are relegated to the rear and, like the kitchen, are extremely small in comparison with the parlor, library, and dining-room.

 In Parisian apartments the servants' rooms are on the top floor, a separate staircase is provided for them, and they are otherwise isolated from the rest of the family, as in many of the newest American apartments. In general the suites of a French apartment house are grouped around a central court, each suite is composed of a double row of rooms, the parlor and main chambers situated on the street and the dining-room and subordinate rooms upon the court, a hall separating the two groups of rooms. Recently a second hall or gallery has been introduced in many apartments which connects parlor, dining-room, and chambers, and is decorated with pictures, sculpture and other works of art.

For legal restrictions regarding the various sanitary arrangements of apartment houses, see article TENEMENT HOUSE PROBLEM. The literature concerning apartment houses is confined to various articles in the technical magazines, some of which may be found in the following volumes; Volumes 40,41, and 42 of the Engineering Record (New York) ; Volume 7 of the Architectural Record (New York) ; The Brick Builder (New York), for June, 1898, and an article on London and Paris flats in the British Architect (London), for February 3, 1889