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Robert and Hazel Lloyd never returned to their Ypsilanti home. In 1971 they were listed as the “retired” owners, and by 1975 the house was described as vacant. The Lloyds left it to their family to sell their honeymoon house in Ypsilanti. An empty time capsule for at least twenty years, the house avoided unfortunate interior changes. The wood trim was never touched, and the original character of the house remained intact.

The house was finally sold to new owners in the early 1970s and then sold again in the 1980s. In 1992, EMU professor Rebecca Martusewicz bought the house, planted trees, and transformed the empty lot into a series of English gardens. In 1998 she began to re-imagine the space inside. With the help of her father, she designed an attic suite complete with a balcony overlooking the garden.

Amy and Jesse Morgan bought 714 East Forest in 2005. A two-career couple with two delightful young children, they have somehow found time to complete a house project every year. The exterior has been painted, the kitchen remodeled, a new bathroom put in, and windows replaced. Recently they added a new front porch. The newest owners understand the Lloyds’s attachment to their house—the Morgans say they can’t imagine ever leaving it. Lynda Hummel 8

Sieron adapted the interior of the home to suit his tastes and utilized his landscaping skills to create the front gardens. The house and garden deteriorated with the next owner. Since 2010 the present owner, Karen Wongstrom, has freshened the interior with new paint and added her turnof- the-century antiques. She is currently restoring the front garden.

The bungalow style was popular throughout the United States from about 1890 through the early twentieth century. Typically one or one-anda- half stories (this house is one story) and strongly horizontal, the style was characterized by a gently sloping roof with wide overhanging eaves. Bungalows gradually lost popularity and by World War II were no longer being built. Today bungalows are once again valued for their practical designs, natural materials, and harmony within the landscape.

This particular example also used distinctive tapered Egyptian influenced window and door trim. As you enter, notice that the trim style is repeated in the rooms inside. Tambour doors, salvaged from the old School of Pharmacy at Wayne State University, and leaded glass panels, discovered in a Depot Town antique shop, were used by Paul Sieron to create the elegance of a vestibule separate from the living room. Antique shops in Depot Town also yielded the handsome oak mantle that surrounds a black marble fireplace and the built-in sideboard in the kitchen. Sieron divided the kitchen into cooking and family areas, retaining the original breakfast nook so popular in the 1920s.

The present owner has used rich but subdued colors to give a cozy craftsman feel to the interior, while not distracting from the light that floods in the windows and the delightful sense of being in nature. As you leave through the back door, you can still look out on a backyard little changed from when seven-year-old Lucy played under the oaks.

This stately Italianate house was built between 1851, when the property was deeded to grocer Frederick Andrews, and 1856, when it first appeared on the city map. It retains its characteristic Italianate features, like the elaborately detailed entryway and the low roof with wide overhanging eaves supported by decorative brackets. The bay windows and the wonderful enclosed porch on the south side that wraps around the back of the house are later additions.

Most fortunately, the essential interior character of the house has survived multiple uses, including being divided into apartments, housing the Boys and Girls Club in the 1960s, and serving as a continuing education center for Washtenaw Community College in the 1970s.

Former Ypsilanti mayor Cheryl Farmer, who is also a physician, has owned the house since 1988, when she purchased it from Paul and Gerry Woodside. The couple had undertaken a four-year renovation that was nearly ruined by a 1984 fire. Dr. Farmer built on their efforts by removing temporary walls to open up the porch and creating a second interior staircase to access the second floor. She had the original banister restored and the bathrooms completely redone with period fixtures.

Everywhere in Dr. Farmer’s house are paintings by her father and grandmother, glass art by her sister, and family furniture, including many items given to her by her parents when they broke up housekeeping to live year-round in Hawaii. Examples are her mother’s piano, a bed made by her father that he gave to her mother on their twenty-fifth-weddinganniversary, and a pier mirror, also made by her father that was a fiftiethanniversary present. Tourgoers will be visiting the terrific second-floor furnished apartment, which was not open in 2000 when the house was last on this tour.

Dr. Farmer’s parents stay in the apartment when they are in town. The view out the back windows is to Riverside Park and the river. Tree aficionados will enjoy the huge copper beech just beyond the porch.

Built in the 1850s, the buildings encompass 16,020 square feet of retail and residential space. The Maurers restored the first floor into three now-thriving retail spaces and created twelve stunning loft apartments on the second and third floors. This brings the number of loft apartments the Maurers have renovated in downtown Ypsilanti to forty-two. The twelve apartments rented by word of mouth before they were ready for occupancy. Tenants are young professionals or graduate students.

All of the apartments have some brick walls and lots of light pouring in to wide-open living spaces. Tourgoers will be seeing three apartments today. The tenants have applied personality, imagination, and style to organizing the spaces to suit themselves. Two decided against the suggested location of the bedroom—one is using it as a sophisticated dressing room that features a fabulous large wood-framed mirror leaning against the wall; the other has the space set up as her “den,” with a TV and a cozy couch. The third tenant created an enclosed bedroom for his young daughter and walled off an area for a home office. In this apartment tourgoers will enjoy seeing the mid-century-modern kitchen table with six matching chairs that came from the tenant’s grandmother. Ladders displaying beautiful shoes are scattered about the apartment of the tenant with the dressing room, and the tenant with the den has a silvery faux fireplace.

When the Maurers took possession of the property, scraps of paper documenting transactions at Mellencamp’s were found in the stairway leading to the second floor.

Enter current proprietor Kevin Hill, who began his cooking career at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids and went on to hone his chef skills in Hawaii, California, and Marquette, Michigan. He retired from the culinary arts field as a vocational instructor in Livingston County. A big booster of the Ypsilanti business community, Hill could not sit idly by when a once-bustling eatery closed its doors. But the “old girl” needed a bit of sprucing for round two. After more than a half century of serving the public, the daily grind had taken its toll on the Wolverine. Hill jumped in with both feet and began the rejuvenation of the restaurant.

The high tin ceiling remains, along with the ceiling fans, which give the place a vintage feel. The too-bright fluorescent lights have been muted, fresh paint applied, and the old chrome lunch-counter stools cleaned up. The menu has been elevated above simple coney-dog diner fare to showcase some of Kevin›s favorite dishes. Ingredients will be locally sourced, when possible. The Ugly Mug Cafe and Roastery is providing the java and Growing Hope the fresh produce and greens in season. Business is returning to the Wolverine, and the future may bring some evenings of family-style dining. Kevin Hill has abandoned his retirement to bring a historic Ypsilanti business back to life.

As tourgoers go through the first floor of the house they will enjoy the reproduction 1880s William Morris Strawberry Thief wallpaper in several rooms; the Pewabic tile on the entryway floor and the original chandelier hanging above; and the stained glass windows displaying the Pennington coat of arms. Family portraits and other fascinating family treasures abound. Of special interest is the sizable portrait of New Jersey governor William Pennington that is an original etching by artist A. B. Walter of a photograph taken by Civil War photographer Mathew Brady. It hangs just to the left as you enter the front room.

The kitchen was first remodeled in the 1950s and then remodeled again in 2010. Motawi Tileworks of Ann Arbor designed the tile backsplash and counters. The Penningtons had the front porch enclosed in 1990, allowing them to use it in all four seasons. Wicker furniture on the porch came from Carole Pennington’s maternal grandparents.

Outside of the house the corner lot holds a variety of plants and shrubs tended by Mrs. Pennington. They provide color over many months and food for birds and squirrels year round. An interesting variety of outdoor ornaments enhances the gardens, which have spread out onto the Grant Street easement. A garden shed and the original two-car garage complete the property.

The center part of this Greek Revival structure dates from 1830, when Isaac N. Conklin built it for his family. In the nineteenth century, the house was far out in the countryside and the centerpiece of a farm with fruit orchards. In 1910 when Dr. James Breakey and his wife bought the house, it was still a country place. The Breakey family did not move in until 1915, and they moved out a year later because it was too far away from town. The family rented the farm to others over the years; they bought neighboring farms until they owned 130 acres.

The Breakeys’ son, James Jr., always dreamed of moving back into the house. By 1967 he was Judge Breakey, and he and his wife, Evelyn, remodeled the house using plans he designed, and they moved in. The remodel added two libraries, a master bedroom wing, a breakfast room, a garage, and a gardening room and nearly doubled the size of the house. Judge Breakey died in 1969, and under the terms of his will the house and property were bequeathed to the Ypsilanti Board of Education in memory of his parents. The school district moved their offices into the house in time for the beginning of the school year in September 1970.

A second addition was completed in April 2011 on the east side of the building, paying heed to its Greek Revival style. A spacious development room and storage spaces fill up the new wing. Tourgoers will enjoy going through the building, which features original woodwork and five fireplaces. Many details of the original house and the Breakey addition remain. Artist Steve Allen is the husband of Karen Allen, administrative assistant to the superintendent. A number of his oil paintings are on loan to the building and they enliven the walls at every turn.

A school district receptionist who has worked in the building for twentysix years is certain it is haunted. She used to come in often at 4:30 a.m., and while making phone calls to substitute teachers she’d listen to someone bumping around on the second floor. “I am sure it is Mrs. Breakey,” says the receptionist. “I’ve heard her many times.”