THE ARCHITECT of 1501 Alexander SE in historic Ottawa Hills was the self-trained Fannie Boylon, Grand Rapids first acknowledged woman architect. She considered this English-style house with multiple steep gables and half-timbering and old English-style door framed in stone, the best of all of the 1,200 homes she designed for Boylon Builders, the company she ran with her husband Fred Boylon from 1909 to 1930. The sturdy construction of steel joists, girders and posts is hidden behind an elegant facade of rough textured Spanish Cordova brick with distinctive dripping mortar joints and large stone plaques artfully arranged on the exterior. Inspiration for the home came from a house constructed by the MIller-Strom Company in an exclusive Palmer Woods neighborhood in Detroit.

CURRENT OWNERS, STACEY AND NATHAN KOETJE consider themselves lucky to have found this very intact period home in the popular neighborhood, especially since they sold their previous Ottawa Hills home on Cadillac in a few days. Luck prevailed soon after, when they found the Alexander house. That was in 2009, and now, ten years later, the Koetjes have watched the value of some neighborhood homes more than double.

City Assessor Photo 1937. Courtesy of the Grand Rapids City Archives.

It’s amazing to look back almost 100 years to 1922, when the gently winding, tree-lined streets of this former golf club were laid out by a prominent Detroit landscape architect. The new residential neighborhood was advertised as Grand Rapids first auto-based development of homes featuring two-car garages. Why that matters is that this home reflected that auto-centric viewpoint since the garage at 1501 Alexander was given nearly as much attention as the house. The heated garage was constructed with a steep French-style hipped roof, lathed and plastered walls, a rounded ceiling, two symmetrically placed windows in the back and overh ead doors. There is a brick stamped with the makers name, as was the custom in those days. The contractors working there recently were awed by its construction.

Somehow it still seems amazing that we recently discovered that homeowner Stacey is the great, great grandniece of another woman architect designing homes in the neighborhood in the 1920s, M. Louise Gilleo http://grandrapidsbuildings.com/louise-gilleo/. There were three known women architects, Gilleo, Boylon (this home’s designer) and Marion Blood working in Grand Rapids during the decade from 1920 to 1930. However, only Blood was left by 1936 and she was designing war munitions by 1942.

Fannie Boylon’s signature design details are found throughout the home. For example, there is a lovely fireplace in the living room with a traditional style elagantly carved wood mantel and a glazed tile surround in soft 1920s colors. The rather surprising abstract tile threshold is similar to another one Stacey has seen in a house on Seminole Street. Many of the homes in the Ottawa Hills neighborhood have unique tile installations.

This home has beautiful curved plaster ceilings found in all of the rooms, including one of the bathrooms where there is a high rounded ceiling vault over the shower. From the living room, a door leads into the former library, most likely always used as a comfortable “lounging room,” as one 1929 newspaper article described it.

Fannie’s homes were designed with style and practicality and built-in fixtures were common such as built-in bookcases and, here, a window seat overlooking the backyard on the staircase landing.

Her arched alcoves are also legendary, as seen in the dining room. The original wood floors have been given new life throughout the house. However, the home’s steel sash casement windows were long ago replaced by previous owners.

Like the other Ottawa Hills homes, although the exterior reflected an old English-style, the kitchen had every modern convenience. Called a “sanitary” kitchen, it featured built-in appliances, good ventilation and a breakfast nook with a window off the dining room. The “nook” is now incorporated into an open-plan kitchen with newer counters and cupboards added by previous owners.

The gracious light-filled dining room is formal yet cozy with family dog Izzy’s bed naturally placed close to the diners.

Bathroom with new vintage-style subway wall tile and hexagon floor tile. The curved shower opening has a vaulted plastered ceiling.

Although Stacey and Nathan are the busy parents of active teenagers, they still find time to make sensitive updates and improvements to the ninety-year-old 2,300 square foot home.

Upstairs, they came to terms with the need to modernize the bathroom and replaced the original purple and green 1920s tile with vintage-style glossy cream subway tile which made their son happy. Since they didn’t alter the basic floor plan, and used the old-style hexagon floor tiles, the renovated bathroom feels very sympathetic to the home’s original style.

There are four bedrooms including a large master bedroom, with more closets than you usually expect in a 1920s home. The master has an en suite bath, updated by previous owners with glass tile accents and what looks like handmade floor tiles in soft blues and greens.

The basement has always had a “card-room,” also often described as a recreation room in the typical Ottawa Hills vernacular. In this case there is a rather amazing, though probably never functional, fireplace composed in the same bricks and oozing mortar sle used in the facade. One of the Grand Rapids Herald articles described built-in bookshelves flanking the fireplace, but they are now gone. Fun features like the built-in ironing board in the laundry room are still preserved though perhaps rarely used.

Basement fireplace in brick with oozing mortar.

If you have to iron, just open the closet in the laundry room.

One last important feature was that when built in 1929, the home was certified by the Grand Rapids Electrical Club as a Red Seal House with standard features such as an abundance of outlets, built-in appliances, kitchen ventilation and a hot water heater. These features seem so common to us today but were on the cutting-edge in 1929.

THE MODEL HOME WAS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC FOR A WEEK FROM 2 PM TO 10 PM BEGINNING SEPTEMBER 29, 1929.

Only rarely do you find so much well-documented information about a house in more than one news article. Here, three different descriptive stories were published in the Grand Rapids Herald on Sunday, September 29, 1929, the day open house week began.

According to one of the articles, Boylon Builders was the first to introduce the “open house” concept.

Looking from the living room towards the front door and dining room..

And, In fact, in July of 1929, at a different Boylon-Ottawa Hills open house, Fred invited all who attended to visit the building site at 1501 Alexander to observe the substantial construction materials and method at work.

For the Sunday Open House, the house was elaborately furnished and decorated. All of the furniture was Grand Rapids-manufactured including Hepplewhite in the Dining Room and a combination of Duncan Phyfe, Hepplewhite and Adam in the living room.

Imported reproduction old English wallpaper and lavender draperies were used in most of the rooms, but a more “moderne” paper was used in the library which was considered more of a “lounging” room, and in the master bedroom. Wrought iron curtain rods were used throughout. Lamps were provided by the Van Claire Company. Master bedroom colors were peach and blue with satinwood and Walnut furniture. The children’s room was done in green and pink with Early American furniture, and the third floor was furnished as a playroom. The home featured red leather furniture in the basement. Furniture was manufactured by the Luce Furniture Company, Michigan Chair Company, Furniture Shops, Kuchins Furniture and Grand Rapids Bedding Company.

Looking from the leaded glass interior door to the foyer and English-style front door.

It was also flatly stated in the published advertisement, contrary to today’s custom, that children would not be admitted “in order to minimize the possibility of damage to furniture and decorations.”

In general, Boylon Builders was a company with great instincts for promotion. They were known for big events like the summer picnic where workers, clients and homeowners were invited for food, games and speeches. In fact, the crowd would meet at Fannie and Fred’s home at 559 East Fulton and convoy by car, parade-style, to the park.

Boylon Builders closed its doors after Fred was tragically killed with his son in a car accident in 1930. Over 250 people, including Michigan’s governor, attended the funeral. Fannie finished the homes that were in process, and then retired. From then on she led a quiet life with few remembering her legacy until she was rediscovered a few years ago by library researcher Marcella Beck who shared her history in he Grand River Valley History Magazine, listed below.

CITATIONS AND REFERENCE SOURCES

“‘Behind Every Good Man…’, The Legacy of Home Designer Fannie Boylon,” by Marcella Beck, Grand River Vally History, Volume 21.

“Designing Woman’ by Jim Idema, Grand Rapids Magazine, March 2006.

“Care Evident in Selection of Furnishings,” Grand Rapids Herald, September 24, 1929.

“Opportunity to See Operations Given by Builder,” Grand Rapids Herald, September 9, 1929.

“Public is invited to inspect Latest Boylon-Built Place,” Grand Rapids Herald, September 24, 1929.