Like an abandoned monarch, the house on the corner of Perrin and Forest was, until recently, shabby and neglected. But under its rag-tag shingles lies a majestic structure with a mysterious, and some say haunted, past.
Well, query, no more, the mystery is solved. RECENTLY BOUGHT BY John Talbot of Talbot & Associates, (a general construction company in Ann Arbor), 601 Forest has in its future, not destruction, but renovation.
The house's history goes back to around 1885, not an exact date because no one knows who the builder was.
At one time, the land where the house sits was a segment of the French Reserve which bordered the Huron River. When Eastern became one of the first land grant colleges, the land (without the house) was annexed and titled the Normal School Addition.
THE HOUSE IS ON the outskirts of an area which is now an historical district. True to form, EMU history was made in the house when George Becker wrote Eastern's fight and field songs in this house, which his family owned. Becker built the tower when the house was still almost brand-new. He once said the property was "Sill property."
John Mahelm Berry Sill (of Sill Hall fame) was in the first graduating class of the Normal School (1854). He later became part of the faculty, and even superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools. It is unknown, however, where he was or what he did from 1886-1889.
According to Jim Frey, general manager of Talbot & Associates, the house was "possibly built by Sill." The house "definitely has some connection to Eastern," Frey adds. The Sill connection, however, is not documented anywhere other than Becker's statement.
The old Becker house was later used as a student residence in the early 1900s. In about 1955, Marie Stachlewitz bought the house, which she owned until 1980.
ACCORDING TO FREY, "Stachlewitz didn't want to sell it to EMU, who wanted to tear it down and build a parking lot." To some, the structure may have been a menace, since it was unoccupied since 1975 and slowly falling apart.
Now, the Becker-Stachlewitz house is in the Michigan Register of Historic Places. It is an example of a "Queen Anne" shingle-style capping of an almost-square clapboard house. The tower's brick foundation is said to be of Byzantine architecture.
For the future, "it is going to be renovated into four apartment units," said Frey. "The house will be available to lease on July 1st," he added.
However, certain disadvantages hang over the dedicated preservers. "Instead of a fire escape, we want to get a variance and have a very extensive smoke-detector system," states Frey. The company does not want to deface the structure to meet fire code regulations.
With the mystery now solved, all that is left to watch are the improvements. Still, "it looks pretty desolate. It needed attention and now it's getting it," concludes Frey.
Why has it stood so long, decrepit and undisturbed, its tower slowly crumbling? And why, in the past couple months, have construction workers been prowling around with sawhorses and tools?
ECHO/Gregory Scott HOUSE REMORSE—It looks sad now, but in just two months, this edifice will again resemble its original stylish 1800s architecture.