The Chateau Frontenac Apartments was an apartment building located 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 ...

. It bore the name of the famous

Château Frontenac The Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, commonly referred to as the Château Frontenac, is a historic hotel in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The hotel is situated in Old Quebec, within the historic district's Upper Town, on the southern side of Place ...

hotel. The building 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 1991, but was subsequently demolished in 1999. It was removed from the National Register in 2020.

Description

The Chateau Frontenac was an eight-story apartment building constructed from buff brick, with off-white

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

details and a hipped roof of green Spanish tile.Chateau Frontenac Apartments
from the state of Michigan The building was

Mediterranean Revival Mediterranean Revival is an architectural style introduced in the United States, Canada, and certain other countries in the 19th century. It incorporated references from Spanish Renaissance, Spanish Colonial, Italian Renaissance, French Colonia ...

with some French Gothic accents, and covered an "E"-shaped plan area. The entranceway was through a tile-roofed projecting pavilion (the center leg of the "E") containing a terra cotta fountain with a dolphin motif. The first floor had raised bricks every ninth course or so, giving the appearance of rustication. Different bonds of brick (including American bond and

English bond Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called ''courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by siz ...

) were used throughout to add textural interest. Fanlike

motifs were inserted above second floor windows. Cartouches of terra cotta were placed between the top-floor windows, and decorative terra cotta eave brackets were beneath the roof. Three-sided multi-paned bay windows projected into the courtyard. The interior of the building originally held 102 apartments. Decorative elements included wood frame moldings and hallway cornices with leaf motifs.

History

The Chateau Frontenac Apartments was originally designed and owned by architect J. Will Wilson. The Chateau Frontenac was one of several high quality apartment buildings that opened along East Jefferson Avenue in the first few decades of the twentieth century. However, Wilson apparently had financial troubles during the construction of the building, and he was forced to sell the building in 1927. The building had a succession of owners from that time until its eventual demolition in 1999.

References

{{East Jefferson Avenue Residential TR Apartment buildings in Detroit Demolished buildings and structures in Detroit Residential buildings completed in 1925 Residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan National Register of Historic Places in Detroit Buildings and structures demolished in 1995 Former National Register of Historic Places in Michigan