The Fredösphere

Two weeks ago I showed you the house built by Green Stamps.  Today I'll give you three more of Ypsilanti's stately homes.

This second empire monster can be found on Grove St.  It was built by John Gilbert in 1860.  It was restored in 1987 and now contains appartments. The lawn is a vast, empty green rectangle; apparently its current owner is the least ambitious landscaper in history.  The house looks great, however.  But say, what's that thing peeking over the top?  It's a tower!  In the back?  This is the front of the house we're looking at, right?  Maybe the tower was positioned to overlook the slope that heads down to the rear and left side.

One more odd detail:  off down the hill a bit, apparently a part of the property, sits a seedy 50s-era motel -- "Yates", or "Tates", or "Bates", I think it was called.  Very strange.  And the old woman's voice I heard screaming "Norman!" from a second-floor window gave me the creeps, to tell the truth.


On my walking tour I found these two houses within a few blocks of each other, south of Michigan Ave.  Both are neoclassical examples on corner lots, with the impressive columned porch of each facing the side.  Yes, even in the second house, the entrance (which you can't see, even if you click to see the larger version) is at the narrow end of the house.  The second house also appears to be a johnny-come-lately to the classical style; I'm betting that porch is an addition.  Also note the way the ionic columns lack bases, which is unusual.  I really like the urns and the unrestrained folliage of the first.

I'm calling these houses neoclassical rather than greek revival because the capitals and grand scale of the round columns seem more Roman than Greek to me.  However, I admit I can confuse the two styles sometimes, and the more I read on the subject, the less I seem to know -- a common experience as I get older.