The Cass Motor Sales is a commercial building located at 5800 Cass Avenue in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, USA. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1986.

History

The Cass Motor Sales Company was established in 1925 as a Chrysler

car dealership A car dealership, or car dealer, is a business that sells new or used cars, at the retail level, based on a dealership contract with an automaker or its sales subsidiary. Car dealerships also often sell spare parts and automotive mainte ...

Cass Motor Sales
from Woodward Avenue by Richard A. Cott, an immigrant from England. In 1928, Cott paid approximately $146,000 to have this building constructed. Architect Charles N. Agree designed the building. From 1928 - 1933, Cass Motor Sales sold

Marmon Motor Car Company Marmon Motor Car Company was an American automobile manufacturer founded by Howard Carpenter Marmon and owned by Nordyke Marmon & Company of Indianapolis, Indiana, US. It produced luxury automobiles from 1902 to 1933. It was established in 19 ...

vehicles. After 1933, when Marmon went out of business, Cass again sold Chryslers. Richard A. Cott died in 1965, and in 1969 Cass Motor Sales ceased operations. The building was sold to Dalgleish Cadillac, who operated it until the dealership closed in 2010. In 2015 the building was renovated into first floor retail space now occupied by

Carhartt Carhartt, Inc. is an American apparel company founded in 1889, known for heavy-duty working clothes such as jackets, coats, overalls, coveralls, vests, shirts, jeans, dungarees, fire-resistant clothing and hunting apparel. Carhartt remains a fami ...

's flagship store and office space above.

Architecture

The Cass Motor Sales is a three-story rectangular structure, typifying

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

architecture as applied to commercial buildings. The building was designed as an integrated showroom, sales office, and service center.Eric J. Hill, John Gallagher, ''AIA Detroit: The American Institute of Architects Guide to Detroit Architecture,''
2002, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, p. 170, The building contains 51.000 square feet over 3 floors. The building is four bays wide, with each bay separated by engaged columns. Three bays are of equal size; the fourth, smaller bay contains a vehicle entrance. The pedestrian entrance is in the center of the third bay. The building once had an attractive facade of black marble and colored plates,
from Detroit1701.org with the marble running across the base of the bay sections, and black colored metal panels providing a decorative separation between the first and second stories. Noticeable Art Deco features include the stepped arch above the entrance and second story windows and the geometric pattern in the string course between the second and third floors and over the front entrance.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Michigan National Register of Historic Places in Detroit Buildings and structures completed in 1928 Art Deco architecture in Michigan Auto dealerships on the National Register of Historic Places Transportation buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Charles N. Agree buildings 1928 establishments in Michigan