Nathan Burnham House

1610 Washington Heights, 947 Wall Street, 940 Maiden Lane Nathan Burnham House, 1837 In 1834, Anson Brown, his wife Desire, and her brother Edward Fuller began selling land just north of the Huron River. Brown planned to have a new commercial center develop in this area known as "Ann Arbor on the Huron". He would have made a "killing" selling real estate lots to settlers pouring into the area had he not died in the cholera epidemic of 1834. Brown's widow soon married Caleb Ormsby and by 1836 the firm, now Ormsby and Fuller, continued selling house lots to settlers at a brisk pace. Nathan Burnham purchased lots 10 and 11 from Fuller and Ormsby in June of 1837 for $600. When he sold the property back to them two years later, he received $1000, indicating that the house had probably been built in the interval. Burnham built the house in an old "New England" style with a high brick foundation, two fireplaces at each end, four rooms on each floor, a central hallway, and an unusual three-part window on the second floor. The entry is a beautiful example of the carpenter's craft with its finely carved pilasters and intricately mullioned side lights. When Dr. Mark Hildebrandt purchased the house in 1969, he removed a more modern door and late 19th century porch and installed this entry which he had salvaged from a house of the same period being demolished. He hired an architect to design the new portico, put in fire stairs and a new entrance off the parking lot in the rear, changing the official address to 940 Maiden Lane. Patients who visited his office enjoyed the unique cobblestone smokehouse with brick quoins that Hildebrandt preserved in its original location in the rear of the house. While renovating the house, he noted that it was constructed with oak beams and pegs, and that the trim was tulip poplar, a wood commonly used in the early settlement period. The house still serves as a doctor's office, now for Dr. Edward Pierce, a former Mayor of Ann Arbor and well-known political and health activist.