GPS City GuideMontgomeryBell Building

Stop 17 of 26 · Montgomery audio walking tour

Bell Building

downtown Montgomery · 1907 · Montgomery's tallest early skyscraper

What you'll hear here: about a minute on Bell Building — how it came to be, who it mattered to, and what to look for while you're standing in front of it.

Since 1907, when local businessman Newton J. Bell built it, the Bell Building has anchored downtown Montgomery, and you are at its foot. For a time it was the tallest building in Montgomery, rising to a height of 187 feet and changing the skyline around you. The entire 12th floor and the roof were once rented by the Beauvoir Club — the predecessor of the Montgomery Country Club — after they sold their mansion on Perry Street and signed a ten-year lease here.

Decades later the building’s historic significance was recognized when it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. More recently the Bell Building underwent a multimillion-dollar revitalization to transform its upper floors into high-end apartments while bringing some retail space to the ground levels. As you stand here now, imagine the club members looking out from that twelfth-floor roof, and the steady evolution from an early office tower to the mixed-use life you see today.

Notice its 187-foot profile above, and the ground-level retail that now welcomes you into this corner of downtown.

Where it is

Coordinates
32.37667, -86.31056
Area
downtown Montgomery
Era
1907 · Montgomery's tallest early skyscraper
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Three stops free. No account needed. The audio plays itself as you walk.