User:Jmk7/Ransom Gillis House

The Ransom Gillis House is an abandoned ruin located at 205 Alfred Street in Detroit, Michigan. It was "mothballed" by the City of Detroit in 2005/2006 in hopes of restoration in the future. The structure has been unoccupied since the mid-1960's.

History
The Ransom Gillis House was built between 1876 and 1878 for Ransom Gillis a wholesale dry goods merchant. The property was sold by Gillis by 1880. The house and property passed though the hands of four different upper income families between 1876 and 1919. After this time the main structure was converted into a Rooming House along with most of the other structures on the street. The Carriage House behind the structure was rented by Mary Chase Perry Stratton in 1903 becoming the first home of Pewabic Pottery. The pottery left the Carriage House in 1906 and it was then occupied by a an auto repair shop, battery service shop, and a filling station before it was torn down and replaced by a restaurant in 1935. The restaurant operated until the 1960's and was torn down in 2005/2006 as part of the city's "mothballing" work on the property.

A storefront was added to front of the Ransom Gillis House in the late 1930's and was operated along with the Rooming House until the mid-1960's.   Various attempts were made to restore the main structure in the 1970's, 1980's, and in the mid-2000's, none of which succeeded.

The property is owned by the City of Detroit as of 2001.

Description
The Ransom Gillis House brought the Venetian Gothic style made popular by John Ruskin's book The Stones of Venice (book) to Detroit. The centerpiece of the structure was the turret situated in the front left corner the circumference of which was accented by five rows of tiles of simple geometric designs in hues of bright blue, red, yellow, and brown. Similar tile work was spread throughout the rest of the structure. The base of the turret was decorated with stone carvings of quadruplets of flower blossoms, similar but all slightly different. The turret was supported from below by an ornate stone post. Dark ornately carved wood columns enclosed the porch at the entrance to the house. Lastly, a steep, dark slate mansard roof with ornate iron cresting completed the peaks in a traditional detail of the day.