Marvin A. Ives House (The Hermitage), 1914
Year
1914
1808 Hermitage Road
Marvin A. Ives House (The Hermitage), 1914
"I built this house about 1914" wrote Levi D. Wines on an old photograph now housed in the Bentley Library. This 28-room structure, set on a hilltop in 10 acres of large trees, exemplified the estate of a country gentleman. The Georgian style house, with its rigid symmetry, its imposing mass, and its arched windows, corner quoins, stucco walls, and pedimented entry, was built for Marvin Ives, a soap manufacturer from Detroit. Ives was born in Detroit in 1859 but his family had long associations with Ann Arbor. His grandfather, Marvin Allen, had been one of the first members of the University of Michigan Board of Regents. His sister Jennie married Edward Campbell (see 1310 Hill Street and 1555 Washtenaw Avenue). Ives moved into 1808 Hermitage in 1915 with his wife, son and daughter, commuting to Detroit to tend his soap business which he eventually sold to Proctor and Gamble. While the family lived here, from 1917 to 1924, the address was on Ferdon.
The 1923 subdivision of Ives Woods, which created 20 lots, paved the way for houses that now surround the Ives mansion. When Ives sold the house to the Hermitage Fraternity after the death of his wife in 1923, the new street took their name. The Hermitage Fraternity remained in the house until 1934. The house was home to several fraternities including Phi Sigma Delta from 1949 until it was sold to University of Michigan Professor Jesse Gordon and his wife Anitra in 1970.
The Gordons attempted to restore the house to some semblance of its former grandeur after its rough years as a fraternity house but the task was unending. In 1981 they put the house up for sale. In 1982, a Designer Showcase, similar to that held for the Hoover Mansion, was held here to raise money for scholarships for the University of Michigan School of Art. The Gordons rented out the apartment on the third floor to Joseph Brodskey, a celebrated Russian dissident poet who later became poet laureate of the United States.
