The Mulford T. Hunter House is a private residence located at 77 West Hancock Street in Midtown

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 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 ...

on July 22, 1994.

History

Mulford Hunter was a captain of Great Lakes steamships, earning enough to become wealthy. In 1891, he purchased George W. Loomer House, and also acquired what was then an empty lot next door, where this house now stands. According to the May 27, 1894 edition of the Detroit Free Press, he commissioned the firm of Donaldson & Meier to design this house, and moved in that year. Hunter lived there with his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandchild, and afterward rented out the Loomer house. The ownership of both the Hunter House and the Loomer House passed from Hunter to his daughter, and then to his granddaughter Carolyn S. McGraw. In 1951, both houses were sold to Phila J. Draper and transformed into multi-unit apartment buildings. They continued to be operated as apartments through at least the 1990s, although under different ownership, but the exterior has not been changed. The owner in the 1990s was Edward Black.

Architecture

This structure is a Queen Anne townhouse,Mulford T. Hunter House
from Detroit1701.org one of the few remaining examples in the city of Detroit.Mulford T. Hunter House
from the city of Detroit The basement is built from large stones, elevating the red brick structure well off the ground. The front façade is asymmetric, with a dominating

bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. Types Bay window is a generic term for all protruding window constructions, regardless of whether they are curved or angular, or ...

on one side and a one-story porch on the other.Mulford T. Hunter House
from the state of Michigan The porch features

Ionic column The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite ...

s atop raised

pedestal A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In ...

s, and the front door has an elliptical fanlight framed by a Syrian arch. Above the porch is an oval window, surrounded by decorative brickwork; other second story windows have similar decoration. Two dormers with

leaded window Leadlights, leaded lights or leaded windows are decorative windows made of small sections of glass supported in lead cames. The technique of creating windows using glass and lead came to be known as came glasswork. The term 'leadlight' could b ...

s surmount the façade. The house is directly adjacent to the George W. Loomer House; the two are the only remaining buildings from the 19th century in what was at the time one of Detroit's most fashionable areas.George W. Loomer House
from the state of Michigan

History

Architecture

References

Further reading