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David F. Allmendinger House, 1890

David F. Allmendinger House, 1890 image
Year
1890
Description

719 West Washington Street

David F. Allmendinger House, 1890

A 1-1/2 acre Paradise on Washington Street," is how local journalist, Mary Hunt, summarized the David F. Allmendinger estate after reading in a 1905 newspaper article: "There is no prettier sight in Ann Arbor at this time of year than the magnificent grounds of David Allmendinger on West Washington ???_ Mr. Allmendinger has a little Belle Isle park of his own."

David Friedrich Allmendinger was a true American success story. Born in Waiblingen, Wurttemberg, Germany in 1848, he came to America with his parents in 1851. They joined a large extended family which had been immigrating to Washtenaw County from Swabia since 1829. In 1867, Almendinger was apprenticed to organ builder Gottlieb Gaertner, who taught him the art of organ making and wood carving. He founded the Allmendinger Organ Company in 1872, and his earliest commissions were for organs for the two German churches in town. His real success, however, lay in selling organs to German farm families throughout the county.

He began modestly in the back rooms of his house at the corner of Washington and First Streets. He later built his brick factory here and became Ann Arbor's second largest employer. In 1890 he was successful enought to build this house a few blocks to the west, in a still undeveloped part of town with creeks running through it. The house was a large, white rambling affair with a wrap-around porch and decorative wood trim in the front gable. Allmendinger needed a large house for his family of 13 children but did not believe in ostentation, so his house is simple by comparison with others from this era. He put most of his time and energy into creating his little "Belle Isle," his Garden of Eden.

Early 20th century photographs capture the idyllic lifestyle. The family posed together under a massive oak tree for a portrait in 1905. Allmendinger's interests in landscape gardening were second only to organ making and he created from that acre and a half a dining terrace, a grape arbor, a goldfish pond with water lilies, a larger pond for carp, a croquet lawn, a log cabin, and the rustic gazebo and bridge, not to mention vegetable gardens and fruit trees of many varieties including plum, cherry, pear and apple, and a chicken coop and barn. Most of this he did by damming the creeks that ran through the property, creeks that are now part of the Allen Creek storm drain system.

David Allmendinger died in 1916. His daughter Julia, and her husband, Judge William Murray, sold the house next door, which they had built in 1909, and moved in with her mother. Pat Haskell, a granddaughter of David Allmendinger, remembers Judge Murray as an imposing and portly gentleman, and a real character who smoked five cigars a day and cussed all the time. Murray was the developer of Murray and Mulholland Streets to the south and east of this property. The house continued to be occupied by descendants of the Allmendinger family until 1991.

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