Douglass House (Houghton, Michigan)

Last updated
Douglass House
2009-0617-DouglassHouse-Houghton.jpg
USA Michigan location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
LocationShelden Ave. and Isle Royale St., Houghton, Michigan
Coordinates 47°7′19″N88°34′1″W / 47.12194°N 88.56694°W / 47.12194; -88.56694 Coordinates: 47°7′19″N88°34′1″W / 47.12194°N 88.56694°W / 47.12194; -88.56694
Area1 acre (0.40 ha)
Built1899
Built byPaul K. F. Mueller
ArchitectHenry L. Ottenheimer
Architectural style Italian Renaissance
NRHP reference No. 82002837 [1]
Added to NRHPMay 13, 1982

The Douglass House is a hotel located at the corner of Shelden Avenue and Isle Royale Street in Houghton, Michigan. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. [1]

Contents

History

The original Douglass House was a three-story frame structure built in 1860 on the corner of Isle Royale and Montezuma Streets, with a garden stretching to Shelden. [2] The hotel had 50 rooms for out-of-town visitors, and the dance hall and dining room served as the social center of Houghton. [3] In 1899, a group of Houghton-area investors, headed by John C. Mann, incorporated the Douglass House Company and purchased the hotel. [3] By that time, the original frame structure was showing its age, [3] so the Company settled on the idea of constructing an addition that would be appropriate for Houghton's new-found prominence. [2] [4]

The group hired Henry L. Ottenheimer of Chicago to design the structure and Paul K. F. Mueller of Chicago to construct it. [3] The new addition cost $125,000 to build and another $30,000 to $40,000 to furnish, [3] and doubled the capacity of the hotel from 50 to 100 rooms. [2] In 1901, the original frame hotel located on the site burned down. [2] In 1902, an addition to the present hotel was constructed on the site by Herman Gundlack of Chicago. [4] [5]

In 1984, the Douglass House was converted to apartments. [4] The first-floor bar remains intact.

Description

The Douglass House is a four-story Italian Renaissance hotel constructed of buff-colored brick. [4] The hotel is built on a sloping lot, so that the structure height measured from street level increases from two stories in the rear to four stories in the front. The front facade features towers at the corners, which are not included in Ottenheimer's original architectural plans. [2] A loggia with gold cupolas stretches across the front. [2] The facade is trimmed with white-glazed terra cotta from the Northwestern Terra Cotta Company. [5]

The original hotel had an entrance on Isle Royale Street, leading to a lobby level one floor above the Shelden Avenue street level. [3] The Shelden Avenue side had stores along the first floor; [2] the remainder of the first floor had a bar and card rooms. [3] The lobby level had a main desk, two lobbies, as well as a telegraph office and a sitting room. [3] The upper two floors contained guest rooms. [3]

Related Research Articles

The Blackstone Hotel Historic hotel in downtown Chicago, Illinois, United States

The Blackstone Hotel is a historic 290-foot (88 m) 21-story hotel on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Balbo Drive in the Michigan Boulevard Historic District in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Built between 1908 and 1910, it is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Blackstone is famous for hosting celebrity guests, including numerous U.S. presidents, for which it was known as the "Hotel of Presidents" for much of the 20th century, and for contributing the term "smoke-filled room" to political parlance.

Van Allen Building United States historic place

The Van Allen Building, also known as Van Allen and Company Department Store, is a historic commercial building at Fifth Avenue and South Second Street in Clinton, Iowa. The four-story building was designed by Louis Sullivan and commissioned by John Delbert Van Allen. Constructed 1912–1914 as a department store, it now has upper floor apartments with ground floor commercial space. The exterior has brick spandrels and piers over the structural steel skeletal frame. Terra cotta is used for horizontal accent banding and for three slender, vertical applied mullion medallions on the front facade running through three stories, from ornate corbels at the second-floor level to huge outbursts of vivid green terra cotta foliage in the attic. There is a very slight cornice. Black marble facing is used around the glass show windows on the first floor. The walls are made of long thin bricks in a burnt gray color with a tinge of purple. Above the ground floor all the windows are framed by a light gray terra cotta. The tile panels in Dutch blue and white pay tribute to Mr. Van Allen's Dutch heritage of which he was quite proud.. The Van Allen Building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976 for its architecture.

Dermon Building United States historic place

The Dermon Building is a historic building in Memphis, Tennessee, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was constructed in 1925 by Dave Dermon at a cost of around $800,000. From the time it was constructed, until 1983, it was the home of Dave Dermon Company, and Dave Dermon Insurance. 'Papa' sold the building in the 1930s, and although it has changed hands many times, it is still known as the Dermon Building today.

Alamo Plaza Historic District United States historic place

The Alamo Plaza Historic District is an historic district of downtown San Antonio in the U.S. state of Texas. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. It includes the Alamo, which is a separately listed Registered Historic Place and a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

Eddystone Building United States historic place

The Eddystone Building is a former hotel located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan at 100-118 Sproat Street. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

The Leland Hotel (Detroit, Michigan) United States historic place

The Detroit-Leland Hotel is a historic hotel located at 400 Bagley Street in Downtown Detroit, Michigan. It is the oldest continuously operating hotel in downtown Detroit, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. The ballroom of the Detroit-Leland has hosted a nightclub, the City Club, since 1983. The hotel is now named The Leland and no longer rents to overnight guests.

Federal Office Building (Seattle) Historic building in Seattle, Washington, United States

The Federal Office Building, Seattle, Washington is a historic federal office building located at Seattle in King County, Washington.

Detroit Financial District Historic district in Michigan, United States

The Detroit Financial District is a United States historic district in downtown Detroit, Michigan. The district was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on December 14, 2009, and was announced as the featured listing in the National Park Service's weekly list of December 24, 2009.

Park Avenue Hotel (Detroit) United States historic place

The Park Avenue Hotel was a hotel in the Cass Corridor of Detroit, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. It was also known as Salvation Army Harbor Light Center and is not to be confused with Park Avenue House, also once known as Park Avenue Hotel. The building was imploded on July 11, 2015.

Hotel Blackhawk United States historic place

The Hotel Blackhawk is an eleven-story brick and terra cotta building located in Downtown Davenport, Iowa, United States. It is a Marriott Autograph Collection property.

La Salle Hotel Former hotel in Chicago

The La Salle Hotel was a historic hotel that was located on the northwest corner of La Salle Street and Madison Street in the Chicago Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It was situated to the southwest of Chicago City Hall and in very close proximity to St. Peter's Church. It was built between 1908 and 1909 by Holabird & Roche, contemporaneously with the Blackstone Hotel designed by Benjamin Marshall in a very similar style and at the time was Chicago's finest hotel.

Sacramento Masonic Temple United States historic place

The Sacramento Masonic Temple, built between 1913 and 1918, is a five-story building on J Street in downtown Sacramento, California. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

Ed Edmondson United States Courthouse United States historic place

The Ed Edmondson United States Courthouse, previously called the Muskogee Federal Building- United States Courthouse, is a historic government building in Muskogee, Oklahoma. It was built in 1915 as a post office and federal courthouse. Although it is no longer used as a post office, it is currently in use by several government offices, including the U.S. Marshals and U.S. Probation Office as well as the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

Shelden-Dee Block United States historic place

The Shelden-Dee Block is a commercial building located on the corner of Shelden Avenue and Isle Royale Street in Houghton, Michigan. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Shelden Avenue Historic District Historic district in Michigan, United States

The Shelden Avenue Historic District is a commercial historic district located along Shelden, Lake, & Montezuma Avenues in Houghton, Michigan. The district contains 43 contributing buildings in an area of 22 acres. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

Fort Armstrong Hotel United States historic place

Fort Armstrong Hotel is a historic building located in downtown Rock Island, Illinois, United States. It was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. In 2020 it was included as a contributing property in the Downtown Rock Island Historic District. The hotel was named for Fort Armstrong, a fortification that sat in the middle of the Mississippi River near the present location of the Rock Island Arsenal. The building now serves as an apartment building.

Putnam-Parker Block United States historic place

The Putnam-Parker Block, also known as City Square, are historic structures located in downtown Davenport, Iowa, United States. The property is three buildings that take up the south half of block 43 in what is known as LeClaire's First Addition. The main façade of the structures face south along West Second Street. They were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. In 2020 it was included as a contributing property in the Davenport Downtown Commercial Historic District. The former Putnam Building now houses a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel named The Current Iowa.

New Center Commercial Historic District Historic district in Michigan, United States

The New Center Commercial Historic District is a commercial historic district located on Woodward Avenue between Baltimore Street and Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.

Holland Downtown Historic District Historic district in Michigan, United States

The Holland Downtown Historic District is a commercial historic district located along Eighth Street from just east of College Avenue to River Avenue, and along and River Avenue from Ninth Street to just north of Eighth Street in Holland, Michigan. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

Pythian Building

The Gillette-Tyrrell Building is a building in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was begun in 1929 by two Tulsa oilmen, J. M. Gillette and H. C. Tyrrell. They initially planned to construct a three-story office building at 432 S. Boulder Avenue, topped by a ten-story hotel, but these plans were canceled during the Great Depression and they stopped construction at the third floor. In 1931, they sold it to the Knights of Pythias, who decided to complete it as an office building and renamed it the Pythian Building.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Jeremy Rickli. "Copper Country Architects: Henry Leopold Ottenheimer". Copper Country Architects. Retrieved February 20, 2011.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Houghton's Historic Douglass House". Keweenaw Traveler. Archived from the original on July 13, 2011. Retrieved February 24, 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Douglass House". Michigan State Housing Development Authority: Historic Sites Online. Archived from the original on May 28, 2012. Retrieved February 13, 2011.
  5. 1 2 "[Buildings]". Northwestern Terra Cotta. 3 (1): 33. 1900.