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First Unitarian Church Parsonage, 1883

First Unitarian Church Parsonage, 1883 image
Year
1883
Description

110 North State Street

First Unitarian Church Parsonage, 1883
Creator: Donaldson and Meier

Only one year after the Unitarians completed their church at Huron and State Streets in 1882, they began work on a parsonage for their dynamic leader Jabez Sunderland. The Detroit firm of Donaldson and Meier, who also designed the church, chose a modest Queen Anne style for the house. Characteristic is the use of different materials on the exterior, including brick veneer on the first story and cut shingles on the second, intersecting gables, and an asymmetrical floor plan. Unusual details include the stone quoins around the first floor windows (giving the building a Gothic effect) and two large chimneys, one of which had to be removed during renovation.

Sunderland was not without input, however. Diaries of local mason Warren Walker, now housed at the Bentley Library, give us day-to-day descriptions of the work: "Sunderland asking for brick veneer and boulder stone trimmings around the doors and windows and also to build corner of stone for first story only. I told him we could" (entry for March 5, 1883). In a September entry, Walker also noted that Sunderland had changed his mind about the color of the mortar: it was to be red, not black.

The history of the parsonage basically follows that of the church. When membership in the congregation declined in the mid-20th century, both the buildings fell into disrepair. In 1946 the Unitarians sold them to the Grace Bible Church and moved to their present home on Washtenaw Avenue. After Grace Bible built its new church out on Maple Road, they continued to use the buildings for meetings, youth recreational programs and, briefly, a bookstore until the late 1970s when the deteriorating conditions forced them to close first the church and then the parsonage,

Long an eyesore, the parsonage, the church and several houses on Huron Street were meticulously restored in 1986 by the architectural firm of Hobbs and Black, Associates, Inc. to serve as their corporate headquarters. This restoration was given an award in 1987 by the Ann Arbor Historic District Commission. Today all the buildings in this complex have given this highly visible corner a new lease on life and have added immeasurably to the revitalization of the Old Fourth Ward Historic District (see previous photograph).

Rights Held By
Photos used to illustrate Historic Buildings, Ann Arbor, Michigan / by Marjorie Reade and Susan Wineberg.