In Richmond, Kent Road Village is a surviving, intact example of a World War II-era garden apartment complex built with Federal Housing Authority financing. Until the 1920s, most multi-family housing in American cities consisted of narrow and deep buildings on confined urban lots, with little access to light or adjoining yards. By contrast, garden apartment developments were characterized by groups of two- or three-story buildings harmoniously arranged in a landscaped, suburban setting. The design of the buildings themselves, with central entrances and no lobbies or elevators, provided for ample light, ventilation, and pleasant views, while allowing ready access to the surrounding outdoor space. When completed in the spring of 1943, the Kent Road Village’s 88 apartment units provided urgently needed accommodations for Richmond residents facing an acute wartime housing shortage. Similar to the Chamberlayne Gardens apartment complex designed in 1945-1946, the Kent Road Village Apartments were designed by prominent Richmond architect E. Tucker Carlton, and are “among the earliest of the FHA-sponsored housing constructed in Richmond and are an excellent example of the FHA’s emphasis between the 1930s and the 1950s on the garden apartment design that would provide comfortable accommodations for middle-class residents in an urban setting within a carefully landscaped setting.”