Browning Apartments
Rehabilitation and Restoration
2703 Washington Boulevard, Ogden, UT
Original construction: 1916
National Register: Individually listed, 1985
The People Behind It
Owner: Casey Keller, Keller Development Group
Contractor: Calvin Squire, Squire Construction
Property Managers: Wendy Pickering and Tressie Kitchen, Evergreen Management Group
Title Work: Frank Ivory, Cottonwood Title
Stained Glass/Leaded Windows restoration and recreation: Jeff Phillips, Glassphemy
Legal Services: Matt Hess, Blackburn Stoll
Woodwork, Door Restoration, Exterior lights: Nathan Van Der Steen, Bang Interior Design
Lender: Rocky Derrick, Taylor Derrick Capital
Landscape Architect: Tony Lawson, SeasonsFour
At a Glance
The Browning Apartments receive the Rehabilitation and Restoration award for a project that required Casey Keller to repeatedly do the right thing, even when circumstances gave him every reason not to. When he acquired the property, it had sat half-remodeled under a succession of LLC operators who had begun work without proper guidance and walked away, leaving behind a tangled chain of title, two SHPO site visits documenting non-compliant work, and a building that needed not just rehabilitation but the undoing of someone else's mistakes. Painted-over historic woodwork had to be stripped and refinished. Incompatible flooring had to be replaced. Vinyl doors near the entrances had to be replaced with custom-fabricated alternatives that matched the building's Prairie-Style character. None of this was technically Casey's obligation, but he inherited it and resolved it anyway, earning both Federal and State Historic Tax Credits in the process. The original penny tile floors at both main entrances were uncovered and restored. The Mississippi red gum woodwork in the stair halls, praised by the Ogden Standard when the building opened in 1916, is visible again.
The Story
The Browning Apartments have stood at the corner of Washington Boulevard and 27th Street since 1916, one of the most architecturally distinctive buildings on Ogden's principal historic commercial thoroughfare. Its Prairie Style character is immediately legible from the street: full-height projecting enclosed sun parlors frame two separate front entrances, casement windows arranged in horizontal bands carry geometric-pattern leaded glass in their upper portions, and successive telescoping bays along the sides increase the building's width toward the rear. The building is constructed in brick masonry, with a mottled lower course of Harrisville brick rising to buff brick above on a concrete foundation. When it opened, the Ogden Standard called it one of the most modern structures of its kind in the state. All fifteen apartments were rented before the building was completed.
The building takes its name from George Emmett Browning, who had it constructed and lived here for the last eighteen years of his life. Browning was born in Ogden in 1866 to Jonathan Browning, founder of Browning Arms Company, and came of age working in his father's gunsmith shop. He helped establish Browning Brothers Sporting Goods in 1886, helped found the Browning Automobile Company, served as Ogden's postmaster, was elected mayor in 1925, and presided over the Weber Stake of the LDS Church for sixteen years. The Browning Apartments are his only remaining residence in Ogden. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, recognized as both architecturally significant and one of only four Prairie Style three-story apartment buildings in Ogden, and historically significant for its association with one of the city's most consequential families.
Preservation Work
The rehabilitation was guided by the Secretary of the Interior's Standards. On the exterior, masonry was cleaned and repaired, a new roof was installed, and the original decorative leaded-glass casement windows on the facade and in the sun parlors were restored with minor replication where needed.
The most visible interior work centered on the stair halls and entrances, which carry the greatest concentration of original finish. The State Historic Preservation Office had visited the site twice under previous operators, each time finding additional non-compliant work. After consulting with the National Park Service, it was determined that historic tax credits remained possible but only if several inappropriate interventions were reversed. Casey inherited those obligations: painted-over Mississippi red gum woodwork was stripped and refinished, incompatible LVP flooring was replaced with a product more closely resembling historic wood, and vinyl six-panel doors were replaced with custom-fabricated wood alternatives matching the building's Prairie Style character. In one of the project's most satisfying discoveries, the original penny tile floors at both main entrances were uncovered beneath later materials and fully restored.
The legal condition of the property presented challenges equal to the physical ones. Nearly 12 months of attorney work were required to untangle a chain-of-title problem left by the succession of LLC operators and produce a clean, financeable title before rehabilitation could begin in earnest.
Why It Matters
The Browning Apartments are back in use, providing much-needed housing on Washington Boulevard and returning one of Ogden's most architecturally distinctive buildings to the life for which it was built. The project earned both Federal and State Historic Tax Credits, the first time the building qualified for both, as the state program did not exist at the time of the 1985 rehabilitation.
The project's meaning was brought into sharp focus when George Emmett Browning's great-grandson, Morgan, a senior conservator with the National Archives in Washington, D.C., visited the restored building and walked through the apartments where his great-grandfather had lived. Casey and his team had set up a history display during lease-up, featuring historic photographs and building history to ensure that incoming tenants understood what they were becoming part of. That instinct to connect people to the places they inhabit is what makes this project more than a rehabilitation.