Located at 27 Bold Street between MacNab Street South and James Street South the Pasadena Apartments were constructed in 1914 for Martin E. Smith broker. It was during the early 1910s that the apartment house made its first appearance in Hamilton as a specialized building type. The Pasadena is significant as one of the early and well-designed examples of a building type that by the 1920s had proli
ferated throughout the city. The three-storey brick structure currently has a capacity of 17 residential units. Despite its size the building relates well in design and scale to its historic surrounding on Bold and MacNab Streets. Stylistically, 27 Bold Street displays many features typical of this early form of apartment house-bay windows, bracketed eaves, porches, balconies, stone-and-brick pattern work, and a galvanized-iron cornice. Similarly, the interior of the apartment house still retains the characteristic period decoration and old fashioned amenities, but the meal service delivered by dumb waiters from the basement kitchen has been discontinued. Important of the preservations of 27 Bold Street is the retention of the original architectural features on all four decades and interior central stairway, skylight, and hallways with their wood and cut-glass doorways, brackets and columns. The Original front doorways and suspended canopy have been removed.
