As an indication of changing standards, when 2440 North Lakeview Avenue was announced in 1926, its 107 apartments made it “the largest of its kind in the Middle West.” Including the land, the cost of the project came to about $4 million.

The larger apartments, a few of them duplexes with two-story living rooms, were intended to be sold, while the smaller units were to be rented. Separate entrances and lobbies were planned for owners and their tenants. The popular “Tudor Gothic” style was expressed in the brick, limestone, and terracotta structure.

Chicago Tribune critic Al Chase declared that its styling made the newest Chicago buildings “look as old fashioned as last year’s straw hat” with its “modern set-back style of architecture, now almost universally used in Manhattan and popular throughout most of the other big cities outside Chicago.”

The setbacks permitted rooftop paraphernalia to be hidden. The usual 1920s luxury items—colored tile baths, separate shower stalls, wood-burning fireplaces, and vaulted galleries—were supplemented by an elaborate sunken English garden.

Aside from the two 11-room duplexes, 2440 originally included about 30 eight-room apartments and 33 six-room units. Reorganized in 1950, many tenants bought their apartments—one 11-room unit sold for $46,000 that year.