Ballentine Place Historic District

Ballentine Place is a residential neighborhood near the center of Norfolk, Virginia, laid out in 1909 by the Ballentine Realty Corporation on land that had been a truck farm. The plan used a regular grid of long, narrow blocks, tree-lined streets, sidewalks and a three-block central open space. In the 1930s the Works Progress Administration added a park with a lake and planted crepe myrtles along the streets. Only a few dozen houses stood before 1915, but demand for housing during World War I brought a surge of middle- and working-class residents, and hundreds of buildings followed through 1953. The district now holds 649 properties, including 616 single dwellings, 26 multiple dwellings, four churches, a school and one commercial building. Bungalow/Craftsman and Colonial Revival houses dominate, alongside Queen Anne, Tudor Revival, Dutch Colonial Revival, Cape Cod and kit houses. The 1915-1916 Ballentine School, a Classical Revival building, anchors the central park.