The Oleander Court Apartments in a 1945 postcard. Note that Oleander Drive is a two-lane road. Courtesy New Hanover County Public Library.

One of the older and more attractive apartment complexes in Wilmington, the Oleander Court apartments date from 1940.

An Aug. 25, 1940, story in the Morning Star announced that construction would begin in September on “72 modern apartments on “a parklike 24-acre site, at the intersection of what is now Oleander Drive and Hawthorne Road.

Partners in the development corporation were Dr. John T. Hoggard, a Wilmington physician and longtime chairman of the New Hanover County Board of Education; Wilmington architect Leslie N. Boney, who designed the plans for the project; John Marshall, described as “a Wilmington newspaper man”; and Roy L. Goode, a Charlotte contractor, whose Goode Construction Corp. took charge of the project.

The neo-Colonial style brick buildings were modeled on similar apartment complexes in Raleigh, Charlotte, Knoxville, Tenn., and Lynchburg and Petersburg, Va. According to the Star, Boney’s plans had been “highly praised” by the architect for the Federal Housing Administration.

The apartments were completed in the spring of 1941. In a subsequent Morning Star story, Marshall — who was now identified as vice president of the management company — said rents would remain steady at $50 per month for 4-room units and $60 per month for 5-room units. Those rental fees included heat, water, gas range and electric ice box.

Built long before nearby Hanover Center and decades before Independennce Mall, the Oleander Courts were at first in a decidedly rural location. In March 1949, the Star reported, the apartment complex was seriously threatened by a nearby woods fire.

Originally designed as family accommodations, Oleander Court was mainly occupied by singles and single parents by the 1970s. The units were converted to condominiums in the 1980s.

Date posted: August 7, 2009

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