Historic buildings, Ann Arbor, Michigan / by Marjorie Reade and Susan Wineberg.

303 North Division Street
Andrew DeForest House 1
1845
Andrew DeForest was only 17 years old when he arrived in Ann Arbor in 1836
from Montgomery County, New York. According to the 1881 History of
Washtenaw County, DeForest worked as a contractor and builder for the next
15 years, "erecting many of the substantial buildings that now stand in the
city." His financial successes undoubtedly
allowed him to build his
own house in 1845 on
fashionable Division
Street, opposite the
Episcopal Church.
DeForest's house is said
to have been a Greek
Revival house with a
colonnaded portico
across the front much like other houses he built (see 7). Old bird's eye maps
show some kind of porch structure on the Division Street side of the house as
well as a "widow's walk" on the roof. According to Lela Duff, a local historian,
DeForest later removed the pillared porch and changed the roof line to make
the square house pattern. The house retains some Greek Revival features in its
corer engaged columns, its white color, and its many-paned windows.
DeForest sold the house in 1888 to Henry Brown, a druggist, who lived here
until his death in 1918. His wife Jane continued to live in the house until about
1933. During their tenure, according to Lela Duff, Louis H. Boynton,Professor of Architecture, oversaw the remodelling into the Colonial Revival house it
is today. These colonial aspects were emphasized by the next owners when the
house served as the Colonial Inn in 1936.
Following Mrs. Brown's death, Mrs. Sue Horer operated an antique business
here in the 1940s and 1950s and lived in the house until the late 1970s.
After 1981 it became a student house dubbed the Colonial Inn. In 1979 the
asbestos siding and wooden arbor over the front entry were removed to reveal
the earlier structure. It was handsomely rehabilitated at this time and in 1988
the house once again became a single family residence.
OFW

36