Detroit Mansion Lands In Tough Housing Market

JESSICA J. TREVINO/Detroit Free Press

Detroit Free Press:

 

The historic Boston-Edison residence of Walter O. Briggs at 700 W. Boston Blvd., also known as Stone Hedge, was listed for $465,000 last month. The price was reduced to $445,000 a few days ago.
Architects Chittenden and Kotting designed the English manor-style home in 1915 with a pale-colored fieldstone exterior.
It's a glimpse into another era when Detroit just began to put the world on wheels and self-made men were building homes on a grand scale.
The 9,638-square-foot home features 11 bedrooms, seven bathrooms and nine fireplaces on more than an acre along the same street where other notable turn-of-the-century Detroiters resided such as Charles Fisher, Benjamin Siegel and Sebastian Kresge.
Quartersawn oak-paneled walls, marble floors and intricate plaster ceilings adorn the Briggs mansion.
Briggs gained prominence supplying auto bodies to the fledgling car industry in the early 1900s though his company Briggs Manufacturing. He later branched out into plumbing equipment. He also owned the Detroit Tigers from 1920 until his death in 1952.

That's less than $5 a square foot.  The photos show tremendous craftsmanship in the home.  One article estimated the house would fetch $15 million in Silicon Valley.  I wouldn't want to heat the place, but I would like to take a walk-through.