Keating Family House, circa 1865

920 East Ann Street

Keating Family House, circa 1865

This nice example of a vernacular "upright and wing" (a house form with both front and side sections) was first occupied by the Keating family around 1868, although a smaller house appears on maps as early as 1866. The property jumped in value in 1873 which may be when the home was enlarged to its current size.

Perhaps this was due to the success of the 1872 Ann Arbor City Directory, compiled and published by John Keating with James Cole. That directory lists John living here with his brothers Thomas J., a cigar maker, and Timothy, who was actually the owner of record by 1873. Timothy was a mason who did the stonework for the first St. Thomas School, yet he lived in an entirely wooden house with a porch of thin chamfered columns and lacy gingerbread common to houses built in the 1860s.

Of all the Keating residents, John was probably the most well known as the publisher of a professional medical journal, The Physician and Surgeon, from 1879?????1915. This journal, under the associated editorship of Keating and several University of Michigan faculty members, had a national circulation.

Although John Keating later moved to a house of his own on Kingsley Street, the Ann Street house continued to be occupied by members of Timothy Keating's family throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Like most of their Irish neighbors, they were members of the St. Thomas parish and are buried in a family plot in the St. Thomas cemetery. The last surviving descendant of Thomas Keating lived in the house until 1971. It is now a rental property but still maintains its quiet dignity on its large, well-landscaped site.