For the legislators or staff who are fortunate enough to rent an efficiency or one-bedroom unit in The Assembly Apartments, relocating to the Capital City for the legislative session looks effortless. Just bring groceries and a suitcase. Everything else is provided.
Each of the 33 apartments is fully furnished with necessities and comforts: cutlery in the kitchen drawer, coffee maker and toaster on the counter, towels in the bathroom with a new shower curtain hanging on the rod. Beds have mattress covers, pillows and sheets. Fluffy comforters are available. Sofas, televisions, tables and lamps are provided. Options for internet service are the choice of the occupants.
Down the hall, tenants will find washers and dryers and cordless vacuum cleaners to keep their home-away-from-home tidy. Spectacular views of downtown Juneau and Douglas with Gastineau Channel in the distance can be enjoyed from many of the large windows. Other vistas face the mountains. Large photographs of various Alaska locations mounted in each unit should make residents feel at home.
A raven perches atop the three-story Art Deco entry of The Assembly, a reinforced concrete apartment building constructed in 1932. (Laurie Craig / Juneau Empire)
The building is reserved for legislators and their staff. Monthly rent for the apartments range from $1,135 for a small studio to $1,650 for a large one-bedroom unit.
The Assembly Apartments’ major asset is its location. The Alaska State Capitol is less than a block across Fourth Street where lawmakers convene each January for the legislative session. With the city center within easy walking distance for dining, shopping and attractions, residents don’t need a car, but if they have one there are underground parking spots available via the apartments’ Seward Street entry.
First constructed in 1932
The original proposal for The Assembly Apartments building was front-page news in the Alaska Daily Empire on Aug. 2, 1932, with descriptions of the planned amenities. The article featured an artist’s rendering of the three-story building exterior that looks much like today’s structure.
The apartment building would have 32 units of two to four rooms, each with built-in china cabinets and medicine cabinets, mosaic-tiled bathrooms, concealed beds (“Murphy beds”), electric ranges and refrigerators, ironing board cases and cooling closets. The residents’ laundry facility was centrally located on the main floor with washtubs and wringers plus a separate heated drying room fitted with clotheslines for hanging laundry to dry. Thick carpeting covered the floors; doors were crafted from mahogany and featured brass or glass doorknobs. For the time period, these were all very exclusive and convenient features.
The main entrance on Fourth Street was opposite the 1928 Masonic Scottish Rite Temple and the 1931 Alaska State Capitol, at the time called the Territorial and Federal Building. The initial apartment design planned to have trees and shrubs landscaping the exterior on both Fourth and Seward Streets. A 36-car underground garage opened onto Seward Street.
Creative local funding 90 years apart
Funding for the construction of the original apartment building in 1932 as well as its recent renovation is the result of innovative local support. To build the structure initially, civic-minded citizens formed a corporation that sold bonds with a generous 7% return on investment. The goal was to raise $50,000, half of the total budget. Construction on the three-story reinforced concrete building began in August of 1932 with completion in late February of 1933. The project provided valuable employment during the Great Depression.
Proposed in 1932 as an elegant 32-unit residential apartment house, The Assembly building is shown in an artist’s rendering on the front page of the Aug. 2, 1932, Alaska Daily Empire.
In 2021, Juneau residents again helped fund the apartments’ recent renovation through the Juneau Capitol Fund within the 25-year-old philanthropic Juneau Community Foundation, contributing more than $3.5 million. The funders purchased The Assembly Apartments building and donated it to the state’s Legislative Affairs Agency, which was responsible for much of the remodeling via funding provided by the Legislature. A local property management firm tends to the day-to-day operation.
“It’s the best thing we’ve done with the Juneau Capitol Fund,” said Reed Stoops, one of the three original founders of the nonprofit community foundation, in an interview on Wednesday. “It’s a great project. I’m glad we did it.”
The fund has financed other projects around the downtown Capitol complex with the goal of keeping Juneau as the capital city.
“We want to do everything we can to welcome legislators and defend against a capital move,” Stoops said. Additionally, the organization has paid for upgraded equipment for live televised Gavel Alaska coverage of the Legislature so Alaskans throughout the state can observe and participate in state government remotely. They have also purchased other buildings in the vicinity of the Capitol.
For decades the apartments served as offices for lobbyists and some legislators. Once The Assembly was purchased by the foundation, Dawson Construction began the renovation and reconversion to housing under the direction of architects Jensen Yorba Wall Inc.
Architect Wayne Jensen described the sturdy original construction details in a telephone conversation on Thursday.
“We tried to recreate the original floor plan,” Jensen said, keeping bathroom locations and bearing walls. He described the system of flooring that included a half-inch thick layer of horsehair for soundproofing insulation.
Legislative Affairs Agency Executive Director Jessica Geary and Juneau Real Estate property manager Elizabeth Clayton show off the new kitchen in a studio apartment. The building was purchased, renovated, furnished and donated to the state agency through the Juneau Capitol Fund and the nonprofit philanthropic Juneau Community Foundation. (Laurie Craig / Juneau Empire)
One unique feature Jensen and others mentioned from the original building was the small delivery door outside each unit’s entry. Measuring about two feet by two feet, the little door in the hallway was for a compartment to deliver fresh milk and groceries. A separate door inside the apartment was for tenants to retrieve their items.
The conversion from offices culminated with the occupants’ move-in date of January of 2024. Capital Office Supply won the contract for furnishings and installation, while Don Abel Building Supply provided the window blinds, giving the apartments a uniform outside appearance.
The concrete facade is painted gray with maroon accents highlighting the ornamental cornice trim. The formal Fourth Street entrance emphasizes the Art Deco features typical of the 1930s. For many years the exterior was not painted in an effort to save money. The gray concrete was sandblasted to freshen its look.
A long history
The Assembly Apartments housed history as well as people. One of the early corporate officers and investors in the 1932 Assembly Company was Harry Lucas who served seven terms as Juneau mayor. He was a banker with B.M. Behrends Bank and later started Juneau Motor Company. Over time, he and his wife Ina owned The Assembly Building, residing and managing the apartments until their deaths.
Mrs. Lucas holds a unique distinction in history: she christened the U.S.S. Juneau, a Navy cruiser with significant national history, in New Jersey in October 1941 two months before the attack on Pearl Harbor that triggered the country’s entry into World War II. The ship is renowned for the loss in wartime battle of the five Sullivan brothers who perished together. That event resulted in a policy discouraging brothers from serving together on the same ship. Juneau commemorates the U.S.S. Juneau and lost lives in a memorial on the downtown waterfront.
Seen from the steps of the Alaska State Capitol, The Assembly, at the corner of Fourth Street and Seward Street, is less than a block away. The residential building is reserved for legislators or staff. (Laurie Craig / Juneau Empire)
The Lucases’ corner apartment was on the first floor with windows facing the Capitol, and all the activity along Fourth and Seward Streets. In the 1930s Alaska was not yet a state. Today’s Capitol was then the territorial and federal building, completed a year before the apartments in 1931. It also housed a post office and museum.
In early January 2025, two of Harry and Ina’s granddaughters shared stories of playing in the building as children. They mentioned the heated “drying room” where residents’ laundry hung in the warmth to dry. Chris Lucas Ashenbrenner recalls playing childhood games darting under the hanging linens while her sister Donna Lucas Baker recalled the scary basement parking garage and heating boiler room “with flames like the entrance to hell.” The sisters are now grandparents themselves, but remember fondly some of the famous tenants who lived in The Assembly.
The Lucas sisters recalled two notable residents: Marie Drake and Guy McNaughton. Marie Drake was a former teacher who wrote the Alaska Flag Song. Her friend Eleanor Dusenberry composed the music. Her words are repeated often as Alaskans sing about “eight stars of gold on a field of blue.”
Guy McNaughton was a hero of another kind. As a Behrends Bank employee in 1923 he foiled a brazen burglary attempt when he grabbed a pistol and chased after the thief as the perpetrator ran out the bank door. Guy shot the man on the street and recovered the loot valued at $3,000. Two days later the robber died in the hospital. Guy later lived in The Assembly Apartments.
The original 1932 Assembly Apartments offered 32 units. Today, 33 units are available in the same structure that has been redesigned to meet the current needs of lawmakers and staff coming to Juneau and to provide convenient access to the Capitol. Ninety years later The Assembly serves Alaskans traveling to the Capital City to craft the state’s future.
To learn more about the history and amenities of The Assembly as listed in early newspapers, search ChroniclingAmerica.loc.gov for Aug. 2, 1932, and Feb. 27, 1933. This is the Library of Congress’s digital library of American newspapers.
