A Mansion For Ypsilanti

The Detroit Journal of last evening has the following:

The sight of the magnificent residence that Shelly B. Hutchinson, the trading stamp man, is building in a comparatively poor quarter of Ypsilanti, is proving sufficient to arouse again the active interest in the city's sole recorded case of a citizen who in scarcely more than half a decade raised his financial rating from nothing to $1,000,000, as given in Dunn and Bradstreet.

Shelly Hutchinson was known about the city as a bright boy with prospects of developing into a good business man, but he was no different apparently from a hundred or more other young fellows of the same age and station, and when he left his home to go into the shoe business in Battle Creek no furor was caused, nor was attention attracted in '94 when he and a friend from Centreville embarked in a new enterprise they called the "trading stamp" business.

In four or five years, however, the papers began to ring with reports of the phenomenal success of the new trading stamps, and now after less than ten years' active work the young Ypsilantian has returned with more than a million dollars to his credit, and an interest in a million-dollar business which is still on the increase. Young Hutchinson bore with a light heart the penniless days of his youth and early manhood, and his demeanor as a millionaire is not a whit different.

With a palatial home in New York and any part of the United States or the old world open to him by virtue of his possession of the all-powerful key of wealth, he has chosen to return to the friends of his father and of his younger days, and to erect a $100,000 residence beside the humble dwelling which sheltered a portion of his earlier days. His manner is as unassuming and cordial as that of his penniless neighbors.

His new Ypsilanti house, which will soon be ready for the furnishers, would present a notable appearance in any surroundings, but on its commanding site on River street it looms up as a veritable palace. The walls are of handsome field stone, and the inside is finished in marble and the most expensive woods, while the arrangement is highly artistic. The height of the balcony is 45 feet, and as the site is in itself a hill of considerable elevation, the upper windows give a view over the entire city to the west and north, and for miles into the country in the direction of Ann Arbor. Twenty-five or more lofty oaks grow in the grounds and the floor of the balcony is just on a level with their upper branches, a height which ensures cool breezes in the hottest days of summer. The place is perfectly equipped, among the special features being a swimming pool, a gymnasium, ball room, while it has the conveniences of elevator service and an electric lighting plant.

Mrs. Hutchinson is a charming young woman, well calculated to reign over such an establishment as her husband is now making ready. She is the daughter of a former Ypsilanti lady, but Mr. Hutchinson made her acquaintance in San Francisco, where she and her parents removed several years ago.