After a three-year hiatus, the Ann Arbor Historic District Commission (HDC) announced its 36th annual Ann Arbor Historic District Commission Award honorees at the June 20 City Council meeting. Mayor Christopher Taylor presented each recipient their award while Susan Wineberg, awards committee chair, provided a brief history of each building or project. The HDC is thanking honorees for their contributions to the history of the city of Ann Arbor through their preservation efforts.
There are 17 awards this year: 13 for preservation, two special merit awards, one for rehabilitation, and a Centennial Award. The City Council meeting video featuring the awards presentation will be available soon and can be watched via CTN on demand at https://url.a2gov.org/UVOS98.
The HDC is providing the descriptions for each winning building or project:
PRESERVATION AWARDS are presented in recognition of superior maintenance of a significant property to preserve its essential historical, cultural or architectural value for 10 years or more.
1. 2115 Melrose – This handsome Tudor Revival home was built in 1929 for James Dale, an insurance salesman. It features a steeply pitched roof, prominent chimneys, randomly extruded bricks, casement windows and an arch-topped front door that combine to give the house a particularly medieval vibe. It has been the home of Ken and Penny Fischer since 1988.
2. 2145 Independence – The Church of the Good Shepherd is a mid-century modern church designed by local architect Robert Metcalf and built by Arthur Chizek in 1957. It is a beautiful example of a non-residential structure designed by Metcalf and has been wonderfully maintained by the church. Its original undulating roof was repeated in an addition built in 2005.
3. 1821 Sheridan – This mid-century modern structure was the home of local architect James Livingston and built in 1958. Livingston designed many houses in this area in the 1950s. He also designed Lurie Terrace, Maynard House, Weber’s Inn, Lawton School, and many houses in Washtenaw County’s Thorn Oaks Historic District. The home has been owned and beautifully maintained by Robert and Martha Ause since 1965.
4. 2240 Belmont- This mid-century modern home in Ann Arbor Hills was designed by local architect George Brigham and built in 1952. It was described in an Ann Arbor News article as “the pinnacle of livability and beauty.” It was built for Dr. Albert C. Furstenberg, a physician who served as Dean of the University of Michigan Medical School for 25 years and developed it into one of the foremost centers for medical research in the U.S. Furstenberg Park is named after him. It has been owned by Adam Matzger and Anna Mapp since 2004.
5. 2228 Belmont – Another mid-century modern house, this structure from 1949 is one of only three residences in Ann Arbor designed by Alden Dow, famous for his home and studio in Midland and for many public buildings in Ann Arbor including City Hall and the Ann Arbor District Library. It was built for Dr. and Mrs. Sidney Hoobler. Hoobler was a renowned cardiologist who founded one of the country’s first hypertensions clinics at the UM. He served at the UM Hospital from 1947–1974 and made the hypertension clinic an internationally renowned research center on high blood pressure. His home has been lovingly maintained by Martin and Marilyn Lindenauer whose family has owned it since at least 1992. Martin Lindauer was a Professor of Surgery at UM for over 40 years and specialized in vascular disease.
6. 3575 East Huron River Drive – An outlier on the banks of the Huron River, this mid-century modern Unistrut house was designed by UM Professor of Architecture Theodore Larson, an internationally recognized practitioner of modern design. The family still lives here and maintains both the inside and outside of the house as it was originally designed. Unistrut is a metal framing system with a unique weldless connection. It has channels used to support heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems that are still in use today. This award is presented to Myra Larson.
7. 717 West Huron – This lovely Tudor Revival style home has majestically looked over Huron Street since 1906. It was built for Titus Hutzel, a member of a prominent German family that installed the central plumbing system in Ann Arbor in 1900 and is still in business today as Hutzel Plumbing. Hutzel was also active in civic affairs, serving as an alderman, President of Board of Public Works, and trustee of Forest Hill Cemetery. Today’s owner, Terri Marra, has kept it in fantastic condition since 1982. (Old West Side Historic District)
8. 1107 West Liberty – Ina Wesenberg has meticulously maintained her 1927 Arts and Crafts stucco house for over 47 years. The house was built by local contractor Sam Stadel. He was the senior partner in the firm of Stadel and Albert, which was responsible for erecting many fine homes in Ann Arbor (1906: Past and Present of Washtenaw County, p. 482). The Stadels lived in the house until his wife’s death in 1962. Ms. Wesenberg purchased the home a decade later. (Old West Side Historic District)
9. 715 Hill -This French Chateau style house has been the home of Chabad House (Congregation Beth Chabad) since 1975. It was originally built in 1929 for the Xi Psi Phi dental fraternity (Michigan Alumnus, October 1930) and in 1934 it was purchased by the Pi Lambda Phi Jewish fraternity. Noted for its oriel windows, stone corner quoins and tall pointed conical roof of copper, the “house on the hill” still stands gloriously over Hill Street. During the 1940s the house was occupied by the U.S. Army for troop training as most of the fraternity members were serving in the war. The radiators and pipes were removed from the dorms and donated to the war effort’s scrap metal drive. In 1949, the house was refurbished and there was a major renovation in 1964. The fraternity disbanded in 1969.
10. 1000 Hill St. – Psi Upsilon fraternity has maintained this classic Tudor Revival building since it was built for them in 1925. It was designed by Albert Kahn, who was a member of this fraternity. He convinced members to move from an old house on Geddes Avenue to this site, where an earlier house was demolished. The house features half timbering on the second story and is brick with ashlar stone trim around the door and windows. It has a beautiful slate roof and a carved stone owl by the famous Detroit sculptor Corrado Parducci.
11. 1311 Wilmot – Grandma’s House now runs this rental, which was built for lumberyard owner C.A. Sauer in 1894. The Queen Anne details have been wonderfully preserved, including the side porch. Also of note are the variety of fancy trims and the many gables, both characteristics of the Queen Anne style. Grandma’s House, LLC, has owned the house since 1987.
12. 703 South Forest – This 1901 house was built for the famous UM Sociology Professor Charles Horton Cooley. He remained in the house until his death in 1929. Cooley helped organized the American Sociological Association in 1905 and became its president in 1918. It has been owned by Schott and Lighthammer and maintained by Campus Management for many years. There is some evidence that the house may have been designed by the famous architect Irving K. Pond of Pond and Pond architects of Chicago (and native Ann Arborites). It is a huge house, now containing five apartments, with an eclectic architectural style that includes exposed rafter tails, fancy gable trim, shingle and mitered lap siding, and an elaborate front porch. It is nestled in a treed area next to the Forest Plaza Apartments.
13. 1603 Wells/1139 Martin – This duplex at the northeast corner of Martin and Wells was built in the Tudor Revival style in 1921 for Harold Zahn (Wells Street) and James K. Pollock (Martin Place). Zahn was a local realtor who earlier had built the twin apartment buildings (in the Tudor style) at 200 and 322 N. State with Dugald Duncanson. Zahn lived at the Wells St. house until the 1940s. James K. Pollock was a professor of political science at UM beginning in 1925 when he was an assistant professor. He became full professor in 1934 and later was chair of his department. Pollock moved away by 1937. Zahn and Duncanson had used Gardiner Vose as their architect for the buildings on State Street so it’s possible he designed these Tudor buildings as well. They display the characteristics of the style: brick, stucco and half timbering, ashlar stone trim around the doors, and Fenestre steel casement windows. They have been beautifully maintained by Patricia O’Dowd since 1997 (Martin Place) and Diane Agresta (Wells Street) since 2000.
SPECIAL MERIT AWARD
14. 517 East Ann Street – Fieldstone Porch Reconstruction. Joe Gailunas gets this award for the meticulous reconstruction of the fieldstone porch on this house in the Ann Street Historic Block, which is part of the Old Fourth Ward. This Queen Anne/Colonial Revival Style house was built in 1906 for Dr. John Morton to be “the showplace of Ann Arbor” with its projecting bay window with its star shaped mullions and varying window shapes and sizes. By 1918 it was being used as an Episcopal dormitory; later it was a co-op for girls. From 1947 to 1970, it was the home and office of another doctor, Dr. Ralph Kraker. Kraker mentioned that Morton told him an earlier house on the site had been destroyed by fire. The house has been owned by the M.A. Wilson family since the 1990s. The front porch was sinking and failing, and Gailunas disassembled and reassembled the porch on new footers while maintaining its unique bowed profile and side entry. His masonry skills are much appreciated by the HDC. (Ann Street Historic Block)
15. 1550 Washtenaw – This special merit award goes to the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority, built in 1921, for the restoration of the much older brick columns that line the east edge of their property along Washtenaw. The columns were disassembled and moved further from the road to avoid clashes with vehicles and people painting The Rock. The initials of the original fraternity Phi Kappa Psi are carved into these pillars while those of Jerome C. Knowlton can be found on the matching pillars along Hill Street. Knowlton and the fraternity once shared a driveway. (Washtenaw-Hill Historic District)
REHABILITATION AWARDS are given to projects that have substantially returned a property to its historic condition.
16. 526 South Ashley – Jay Simrod and Constance Crump are receiving this award for the beautiful restoration of their Queen Anne home. It was built in 1894 for Katherine Klingman, a widow, who lived here with her three daughters for almost 40 years. Simrod has been working on this building since the 1980s and we are pleased to recognize his work in restoring and replicating the features of this wonderful Queen Anne. A considerable amount of work went into restoring the porch to an original look. His other projects on Ashley Street have greatly beautified the block. (Old West Side Historic District)
CENTENNIAL AWARD
17. Van Boven, Inc., 326 S. State St. – Housed in the 1915 portion of the Nickels Arcade, the Van Boven storefront that is so prominent on State Street has been there almost from the beginning. Peter J. Van Boven, the founder, moved the store in 1923 from a South University store which he’d opened with friends in 1921. As his name would suggest, he was a child of Dutch immigrants and lived in Grand Rapids. Peter came to UM, was a star on the baseball team, and never looked back. He opened his store with the intent to provide simple but elegant clothing for discerning customers. It maintains that focus today, as third and fourth generations of the Van Boven family still run the business. (State Street Historic District)
