Biddle House

The Marx House is significant architecturally because it is a typical example of an Italianate townhouse that was popular in large cities during the 1870s and 80s. It is especially important in Wyandotte because it is the only house of this style in the city. In fact, extensive research indicates that this may be the only house of this style ever built in Wyandotte. The house was built c. 1872 by Dr.

Theophilus Langlois, city physician, twice mayor, president of the school board and founder of the city water works. The creation of the city water works was part of Dr. Langlois' continuing campaign to control communicable diseases in the city of Wyandotte. The house was purchased in 1880 by Anna and William Armstrong.

William Armstrong was active in local politics and served as city treasurer during the 1870s. Anna Armstrong died in 1904 and William continued to live in the house until his death in 1921. The heirs of William Armstrong sold the house to John Marx in 1921. The Marx family had been prominent in business and politics in Wyandotte for many years.

John Marx was City Attorney for a number of years and was a member of the city's charter commission during the 1920s. John Marx and his family lived in the house briefly in the 20s and then moved to more commodious quarters. The house stayed in the Marx family until it was deeded to the city in 1974. It is known locally only as the "Marx house." The City has engaged an architectural firm to restore the house to its 1870 appearance for use as a period house museum.

The Marx House is a standard Italianate townhouse dating from the early 1870s. Although erected without side windows, apparently in anticipation of other similar dwellings being built alongside, there is no evidence of similar dwellings anywhere in Wyandotte. Most of the other houses built in the vicinity were fairly unpretentious frame houses on wide lots. The Marx House has a three bay facade with the entrance in the north bay.

This double door entryway is capped by a decoratively carved wooden canopy. The original stoop has been replaced by an oversized concrete slab resting on a stone foundation. The windows in the facade are double hung sashes, two over two. The openings are topped by half-round arches of protruding brick with carved stone keystones.

The roof of the main portion is hipped with a flat deck which once supported either a widow's walk or a cupola. The roof is bracketed with ornately carved wooden brackets, spaced 24" on center. The main portion of the house faces east and measures approximately 25' x 34'. A smaller, lower two story wing extends from the back, or west side of the main portion.

The cut stone of the foundation and the brick and mortar of this wing are the same as those used in the main portion of the house, indicating that it was built simultaneously with, or very shortly after, the main portion. It measures 20' x 17' and is aligned with the north wall of the main portion. It has a bracketed roof similar to the main portion but the window treatments are less ornate. A one-story frame addition was added to the west of this west wing sometime in the 1930s when the house was converted from a single family dwelling into apartments.

This frame addition, which sets on a block foundation, will probably be removed when the building is restored to serve as a period house.

The George P. MacNichol House is significant as a large and excellent example of a late Queen Anne style residential structure in Wyandotte, an industrial based community eleven miles down river from the center of Detroit. The house is also significant as a residential work of the prominent Detroit architectural firm of Malcomson and Higginbotham, and for its association with people important to the development of Wyandotte. It was built in 1896 for George and Laura MacNichol.

Laura MacNichol was the granddaughter of Captain J. B. Ford (1811-1903), founder of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company and the Michigan Alkalai Company in Wyandotte, and the daughter of Edward Ford, the founder of the Ford Plate Glass Company in Toledo, which grew into the Libby-Owens-Ford Company, and co-founder of the Michigan Alkalai Company. George Pope MacNichol (1870-1930) was a medical doctor by training and was active in the research and development aspects of the Michigan Alkalai Company and the Ford Plate Glass Company.

The size and splendor of the house reflects the stature of the MacNichol family. Typical of the Queen Anne style, the house presents a picturesque appearance with its asymmetrical massing, corner tower, intersecting rooflines and varied textures.

The George P. MacNichol House is a large two-and-one-half-story Queen Anne style house located at the southwest corner of Biddle and Vinewood avenues in Wyandotte, Michigan. Wyandotte is an industrial and shipping based community located eleven miles south of the center of Detroit on the Detroit River which connects Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair.

The MacNichol House was built in 1896 to the designs of the Detroit architectural firm of Malcomson and Higginbotham. This wood-frame house is rectangular in plan incorporating projecting bays and a corner turret and is capped with a steeply pitched hipped roof with intersecting gables. The wide eaves are visually supported with projecting rafters. The large gable ends and the third floor of the turret are sheathed in wood shingles, while the remainder of the house is sheathed with clapboards.

Each gable-end contains a Palladian window. A one-story porch starts in the middle of the north elevation, curves around the corner turret to the east elevation and terminates in a circular plan at the southeast corner of the building. The porch roof is supported by pairs of Tuscan columns on tall clapboarded bases. Each column set is separated with geometric lattice-work below the cornice line and a spindle balustrade.

The house contains large plate glass windows on the first floor. The interior contains fifteen rooms, most trimmed in golden oak. The open main staircase to the second floor incorporates elaborate oak paneling, corinthian columns, turned balusters and stained glass windows at the landing. There are six fireplaces of marble or colorful tile with wooden mantelpieces in the house, four on the first floor and two on the second.

The house remains in excellent and unaltered condition. It remained a single family residence until 1977 when it was purchased by the City of Wyandotte for use as a museum. It continues to be operated and maintained by the City of Wyandotte.