Roberts School Flats boasts an impressive and relatively unknown past. Built in 1936, it was funded with grant money from the post-Depression era Public Works Administration’s New Deal and generous donations from its namesake, local philanthropist, James E. Roberts and his wife, Henrietta. Roberts School Flats is truly a surviving piece of Indianapolis history. Once on Indiana Landmark’s 10 Most Endangered Buildings List, this twentieth-century landmark has been given new life by Core Redevelopment.
Designed in an “Art Moderne” style and designed by local (Indianapolis) architects McGuire and Shook, the “James E. Roberts School #97” was truly a state of the art building. It was the first school to be designed for Indianapolis children with physical handicaps, and it is obvious the architects were creative, thoughtful, and thorough in their design details.
School #97 was state of the art and had many adaptations and amenities that were simply unheard of in the 1930’s for a school, including spaces for occupational therapy, physical therapy, home economics, industrial arts, and a “rhythm room”. Such innovative features also included a hydrotherapy pool, an impressive interior wheelchair ramp system, a sun deck, and even an elevator! This school was truly one of a kind for its time and aimed to create an accessible environment for Indianapolis’s special and previously neglected children.
School #97 served the city’s children with physical handicaps for 50 years. As policy change finally allowed mainstream classrooms to incorporate all children, regardless of their abilities, School #97 became an IPS Key School and then Horizon Middle School. IPS closed School #97 in 2006 with plans to demolish the building.
As a company devoted to restoring and preserving Indianapolis’s historic gems, Core Redevelopment fought to save this one of a kind building. School #97 has lovingly been maintained and re-imagined into 33 incredible apartments, now to be known as Roberts School Flats. The features that made this building initially one of a kind, have been restored and carefully retained, so as to honor the school’s historically unique past.
