109 North Street
Abby Coykendall

This diminutive but vivid purple and orange 1917 craftsman bungalow at 109 North Street is the home of EMU English professor Abby Coykendall.

The house has a recessed front porch; inside are original floors, windows (in abundance), and woodwork. Although just a bit more than 1,200 square feet in size, the house is spacious and very comfortable for one person and a cat. Coykendall makes use of every inch of space. The front room, which was once likely an enclosed porch, is her office and it opens into the living room. The adjacent dining room doubles as a family room. The previous owner chose distinctive paint colors, which Coykendall likes a lot, although she’s thinking about deepening the colors in the front room and living room. One of the two upstairs bedrooms has
dark purple walls.

Coykendall bought the house in June 2007, coming to Ypsilanti and EMU by way of Tucson, San Francisco, and Buffalo. She describes North Street as “location, location, location,” saying that she loves being “a hop, skip, and a jump” from Riverside Park and Depot Town. Coykendall appreciates the easy walk home after meeting her colleagues in the English Department for a drink at the Sidetrack. In nice weather, she bikes to work.

Coykendall has an eclectic collection of furniture and things picked up over the years. Several Rothko reprints are on the walls. “I got almost everything in Buffalo,” she says. “Buffalo is filled with old things.”

Stepping out the kitchen door into the backyard, tourgoers will see a little porch off to the right. “It is just big enough to fit me, a cat, and a book when it rains,” laughs Coykendall.

110 North Street
Christine Neufeld

This vernacular 1890 Queen Anne at 110 North Street is painted in historically accurate shades of green. The details on the front gable of the house clearly suggest that its builder had an awareness of what was fashionable in the late nineteenth century. The bright color scheme and modern version of a steel roof lend the house distinction in the twentyfirst century.

Christine Neufeld, a professor in the EMU English department, was living in an Ann Arbor apartment. Her parents were bugging her to buy something but she knew she would never invest in a house unless it was her idea of perfect. Her colleague Abby Coykendall had just bought a house on North Street. “You should check out the house across the street,” Coykendall told Neufeld. She arranged to see the house, which was for sale. “It catapulted me into the market,” says Neufeld. “It was the perfect house.”

Neufeld moved in early last fall and with a few subtle changes has made the house her own. Tourgoers are going to like what she has done. “The front of the house is sedate and sophisticated,” she says, “and the back of the house more playful.” The only bathroom, which is at the back on the main floor, is hot pink to the max. At first Neufeld was taken aback. But, ever resourceful, she hung a black-patterned shower curtain and painted the floor black. This turned “a Barbie’s camper moment into a 1950s Parisian boudoir,” Neufeld says. The large, light-filled kitchen is terrific for cooking and entertaining. By painting the lime-green floor black the kitchen was transformed, she says, into an “American version of a French country house kitchen.” Just outside the kitchen window are 100-year-old lilac, jasmine, and honeysuckle bushes.

Like her friend across the street, Neufeld is thrilled to be living on North Street in Ypsilanti. “I like the sense of community,” she says. “I like living in a nonsuburban way.” She recently bought an antique bike to ride to work.

711 Hemphill Street
Mary Potts and Tim Pulice

William Passer, a somewhat mysterious fellow, built this petite charmer in 1926 at what was then the edge of town. Passer then disappeared from city records, leaving the house vacant. It would be almost twenty years before the present neighborhood developed around it. William Reninger, assistant professor at the Normal College (now EMU), rented the house in 1928. It sat vacant after that year until 1935, perhaps due to the Depression. And then, in a ten-year span, the house changed tenants almost every year. In the last sixty years, its most persistent residents were city councilman Bill Nickels and his wife, Karen, who owned the home from 1965 to 1973. The Nickels carried out some of the renovations that you will see, such as the present garage, the backyard pool, the siding, and the rearrangement of the basement stairs. Few other changes had been made until the present owners, Mary Potts and Tim Pulice, added their artistic flair.

The style of the house is Dutch colonial, a popular revival in the early twentieth century. It is characterized by a roofline of four angles, which was so commonly used for barns. The house still has its original windows, with decorative mullions on the top sash. Tourgoers will be viewing only the ground floor today. Mary is a professional photographer and a former artist at Detroit’s Pewabic Pottery. She and Tim have decorated with rich colors and her own art and that of her friends. Note the portrait of Tim in the dining room that Mary created with a rubber stamp. She also put her considerable pottery talent to use on the backsplash of the newly renovated kitchen. On display in the dining room is her collection of green pottery by Michigan potter Robar. Daughter Zoë, four, has added her own touches to show that there is room for everyone in this modest but delightful house..

514 Fairview Circle
John Bailey

William and Lena Lewis built this charming period Tudor house in 1932. William worked at Michigan Ladder Company. In the late 1940s Marie Goodnow became the house’s second owner. She married Thomas Burns in 1953 and by 1956 was a widow. After her death in 1965, Robert and Rosemary Bailey bought the house. Their son, local attorney John Bailey, purchased it after his mother’s death in 1996. “I’ve lived here my whole life except when I was in college,” says Bailey.

The house is very well built, which is typical of pre-World War II construction. Any latter-day Hansel and Gretel would appreciate the delightful exterior brickwork. Dark clinker bricks pop out everywhere. When John and his brother were young they used to climb all over the outside of the house on those bricks. A curved raised-eyebrow dormer over a window on the east front roof eave is a questioning wink at anyone who is coming up the walk to call.

Rosemary Bailey had a wonderful eye, according to her son, and was a collector of many things. In the 1970s she worked at the Treasure Mart in Ann Arbor. She also inherited terrific antique pieces from her Illinois father, “who claimed to be the biggest hog farmer in the country,” says John. “I have my mom’s whole lifetime collection of everything,” he laughs.

Bailey has been restoring the interior of the house, including refinishing door hardware and painting all of the rooms. Several years ago he updated the kitchen. Tourgoers will appreciate the spit and polish he has lavished on this house that he loves so well and they will also enjoy seeing his mother’s treasures.

402 South Huron Street
Brynn and Paul Raupagh

Built in 1895 by the Weinmann family, who owned a local drug store, this lovely Queen Anne house has had the good fortune of being rescued by Brynn and Paul Raupagh. The house went into foreclosure in 2005 and two years later the Raupaghs purchased it from the bank. They had not been looking for a home to restore, but liked the idea of bringing it back to life while maintaining its historical integrity.

The Weinmanns put an addition on the rear of the house around 1914 to accommodate an additional family. In recent years, the house was subdivided into apartments. It had been neglected and vandalized by the time the Raupaghs discovered it. They believe the house was once 3,600 square feet; today it is 3,000 square feet.

The Raupaghs, who are experienced builders and remodelers, discovered several more additions and changes to the 1895 structure. But original to the house are oak floors throughout; a stained glass window; the beautiful, large pocket doors; the ceilings; and even some of the light fixtures. The interesting circular window originally opened onto a front porch. This old painted lady is getting a new set of colors. Brynn researched historical colors of the era and is pleased with her choice of hopsack and blonde. Today’s tourgoers will note that the house is very much a work-in-progress.

The Raupaghs are hoping that someone who appreciates this historic house will become its next owner.

200 West Michigan Avenue
Scotty James

In 2002 Eric and Karen Maurer transformed empty space above the former Kresge store at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Washington Street into twelve loft apartments. Today tourgoers will see Scotty James’s terrific studio apartment with its three tall windows embedded in a brick wall that overlooks Washington Street. Last September James moved from a 5,500-square-foot house in Detroit into this 650-squarefoot space that has it all: a nice kitchen, a great bathroom, a brick archway framing the entrance to the main living area, and a surprising amount of room for James’s eclectic collection of amazing furniture and stuff. The headboard for his bed was once a choir stall at the Methodist Church in Ann Arbor. His TV lives on a 1950s credenza. He bought an elaborate Moroccan lamp at Bowerbird Mongo. It sits next to his 1860 Huntzinger chair, a prototype for today’s recliners. You get the idea. And don’t miss the disco ball!

128-130 West Michigan Avenue
Laura Ober
Kyle Farr and Luis Ballesteros
Steve Rajewski

The Maurers in the last year have created six loft apartments in a building across the block from the Kresge Building. The 1860s former Hewitt Hall, at 130 and 128 West Michigan Avenue, once had a third floor that housed the first theater in Ypsilanti. Frederick Douglass spoke there three times in the late 1860s. Today the third floor is gone, victim of a long-ago fire. The ground floor is the home of the new What Is That art gallery (be sure to check it out). Tourgoers will be going into three loft apartments; two are 800 square feet and very different from one another, and the third is surprisingly spacious at 450 square feet. Laura Ober, who teaches English to seventh graders in Belleville, is happily ensconced in one of the larger apartments. Kyle Farr and Luis Ballesteros moved in June into the other 800-square-foot space, which has two bedrooms and an unusual skylight in the living room. Steven Rajewski, a student and a musician, lives in the small apartment, which has a separate bedroom and a very cool Ikea kitchen. Steven used a bookshelf as a “wall” to create an office in his living room. The five people who live in these four downtown loft apartments all have in common a love for their unique urban homes and lifestyles.