The Directory Houses

1869 – 1892, as the directories list them

Lead: Below the named hotels stood a second tier of lodging that Leeper himself sorts with a caveat: the houses of this entry were "perhaps more in the nature of boarding houses." They survive at directory size — a name, an address, a pair of years — and they are printed at exactly that size, because together they are the evidence that the city's lodging trade was wider than its hotels. The Emmet House stood at Franklin and South streets from 1869 to 1872. The Kunstman House, at 125 South Michigan, is listed 1871–72. The Union House, at Michigan and Center, runs 1873–74. A Lafayette House — a third use of the name, distinct from both Lafayette Hotels in this record — stood at 77 Michigan Street under the old numbering. The South Bend House, at 76 Michigan, is listed in 1889. The Hotel Royal, at 117 West Washington, appears in 1892, and a Hotel Washington at 538 South Scott Street the same year.

One more house of this class stands in the National Register record rather than the directories: the Morningside Club Residence, an extant lodging property carried in the register's South Bend nominations. It is printed at pointer size here — a residence club is a boarding house that lasted — and its full account belongs to the architecture record. The directory houses' individual courses, keepers, and ends rest in the city directory runs at the St.

Sources:

1. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), vol. 1, Leeper's hotel reminiscences (the directory houses, with Leeper's own caveat), read first-hand.
2. National Register of Historic Places, South Bend nominations (the Morningside Club Residence).