Historic homes in Little Rock are certainly not limited to downtown.  Today’s is the Albert Retan House, built in 1893 in what would become Pulaski Heights.

Due to geography, by the late 1800s, the land west of Little Rock stood as the only logical direction for the city to expand.  A group of Michigan investors saw the potential of this area of rolling hills and pine forests as sound investment property and conceived the development of Pulaski Heights, Little Rock’s first planned suburb.  In 1891 this investment syndicate organized the Pulaski Heights Land Company and proceeded to purchase 800 acres located three miles west of Little Rock.  Eight of the investors, including Albert Retan, brought their families to Arkansas to settle in the new suburb.

Retan built his house in 1893 and it remains an important symbol of the founding, growth and success of the Pulaski Heights community.  Architecturally, the structure represents a transitional style incorporating the fluent decorative woodwork of the Queen Anne in its sweeping porch with spindle frieze and the stately lines of the Colonial Revival mode in its hip roofs with projecting cross gables and its Palladian windows.  The suburb attracted professionals and businessmen who desired an alternative to living in the central area of the city without forfeiting convenient access to their places of business in downtown Little Rock.

Once established as a popular neighborhood, Pulaski Heights grew steadily.  As a result, it was incorporated as a town in 1905 and soon after, in 1916 the “Heights” was annexed to the city of Little Rock.  Never having suffered the decay that has threatened many of Little Rock’s other older neighborhoods, Pulaski Heights remains a prominent residential area in Little Rock with the Albert Retan House surviving as an important reminder of the origins and history of the city’s first planned suburb.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 3, 1980.