Vollintine Hills Historic District
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Vollintine Hills Historic District
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| Location | Roughly bounded by Vollintine, Brown, McLean, and Evergreen, Memphis, Tennessee |
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| Architect | Awsumb, George; Gruber, Herman |
| Architectural style | Colonial Revival, International, Minimal Traditional, Modernist Ranch |
| MPS | Memphis MPS |
| NRHP reference # | 07000684 |
| Added to NRHP | July 11, 2007 |
Vollintine Hills Historic District is a historic district located in the Midtown area of Memphis, Tennessee, notable for its cohesive collection of 78 post-World War II Minimal Traditional and ranch-style houses built around a former synagogue. "The neighborhood represents the efforts of members of an Orthodox religious group to accommodate their beliefs by developing a synagogue and housing for the congregation within easy walking distance.”
Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, the area also includes the former site of the Baron Hirsch Synagogue, built in two phases—1950-52 and 1955-57—in the International Style and set on a 12.4-acre (50,000 m2) site at the southwest corner of the district.
When it was completed in 1957, the main sanctuary of the synagogue was the largest in the United States, according to the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
Houses within the district are largely “intact and homogeneous building stock constructed between 1946–1957” in conjunction with the synagogue, and are within walking distance of the former synagogue. They originally served to house its orthodox Jewish congregation." The district has been singled out for its unity by both “its historic building stock and contiguity to the former synagogue.”
Vollintine Hills is notable as a clearly definable geographic area, whose physical development, “defined by the needs of a religious community,” is “readily distinguishable from surrounding properties.”
Although the synagogue was vacated in 1984 and moved to a new location farther east in Memphis, the original building still stands and in 1992 was sold by the congregation to the Gethsemane Garden Church of God in Christ. The historic area “continues to be a viable area today, adapting to changing times and needs.”
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