Fort Shelby Hotel

The Fort Shelby Hotel is significant as a fine example of early 20th Century hotel architecture in Detroit displaying the Georgian and Classical Revival styles and as an example of the work of two prominent architectural firms, Schmidt, Garden & Martin (now Schmidt, Garden & Ericson) of Chicago and Albert Kahn & Associates of Detroit. The hotel is named for Fort Shelby, which stood on the site of the hotel where the British ceded the straits of Detroit to the Americans during the war of 1812. Built in 1916, the ten-story, 394-room hotel quickly became one of Detroit's busiest, so much so that a twelve-story, 430-room tower addition was built in 1927 which included club rooms, extensive public space and catering facilities. For over sixty years the hotel has been a popular institution in Detroit and famous for its catering and banquet services.

The hotel is representative of a general building type constructed during a relatively short but active period (1915-1935) in Detroit's construction history. This boom period gave rise to numerous brick and stone high-rise office buildings and hotels that to this day give Detroit its distinctive masonry towered skyline. Two prominent architectural firms were responsible for the design of the Fort Shelby Hotel. The architect for the original building, Schmidt, Garden & Martin, were Chicago architects instrumental in the formation of the Chicago School of Architecture and responsible for numerous landmark buildings in the Chicago area, e.g., Montgomery Ward Warehouse in 1908, the Madelener House in 1902, the Schoenhofen Brewery in 1902, and the Chapin and Gore Building in 1904.

The 1927 tower addition is the only known surviving high-rise hotel designed by Albert Kahn, the internationally renowned 20th Century architect. Kahn also designed the three-story Dearborn Inn in Dearborn, Michigan, listed on the National Register. The massing of the "Shelby Tower," as it has come to be known, recalls on a modest scale Kahn's design for the General Motors World Headquarters, also built in the 1920s and a main component in Kahn's New Center complex in Detroit. Reflecting the changing times of the middle part of the century, the Fort Shelby changed from serving the commercial traveler to catering to the businessman and the convention goer.

Purchased in the early 1950s by the Albert Pick Hotel chain, it then became known as the Pick-Fort Shelby Hotel. With the decline of Detroit's downtown and the migration of business to the suburbs in the early 1960s, the hotel fell on hard times and was sold to its present owners who attempted to update it by installing boutiques and restaurants on the ground floors. However, by the mid-1970s it was clear that it would not survive economically as a hotel and closed its doors. Plans have been formulated for adaptive reuse for office space.

The Fort Shelby Hotel consists of a ten-story, 394-room, brick and limestone building constructed in 1916 with a twelve-story brick and limestone tower addition of 430 rooms built in 1927. The original building is Georgian eclectic in style, while the addition is more classical revival in style. It is located on the southwest corner of W. Lafayette and First streets, on the western periphery of Detroit's central business district.

The Shelby was a popular commercial hotel in the 1920s with close proximity to the Fort Street Railway station, the steamship lines on the nearby Detroit River, and Detroit's then burgeoning theatre district. Except for storefront alterations the building has not been changed on the exterior. The building occupies its entire site of approximately two-thirds of an acre, except for a thirty-foot-wide strip of land along the western edge of the structure which is used for parking. The basement extends under the sidewalk about fourteen feet at the north and east, typical of buildings of that era.

Presently there are two parking lots adjacent to the Fort Shelby, and a three-story brick commercial building now used as an office building to the south. It is the tallest structure in the immediate vicinity and dominates the streetscape. The two main entrances to the building face east and north. The Fort Shelby Hotel has been unoccupied since 1975 except for the "Anchor Bar," a saloon frequented by newspaper and television people whose offices are across the street.

The original layout remains with small, undistinguished guest rooms on the upper floors and larger public spaces and dining rooms on the main and second floors. The interior is not particularly noteworthy except the main lobby where a monumental marble staircase predominates. The building is approximately 131' x 172' at the ground floor and is basically rectangular in plan with two interior light wells from the second through tenth floors. Both the original building and the 1927 tower addition have flat roofs, and the structural system for both buildings is a combination of steel frame and concrete.

The original building as well as the addition are divided into three parts: a base, a shaft and a cap. The shaft is largely of a reddish-brown colored brick with both the base and cap of gray limestone trim. The two-story base is rusticated limestone with limestone cornices at both the second and third floor lines. Limestone quoining runs the entire height of the original building to the dentilled cornice at the roof.

The upper three stories are ornamented with extensive limestone detailing including three projecting balustrades, a limestone drapery swag motif over small, square windows at the topmost level, reminiscent of Renaissance palazzos. Atop the projecting roof cornice are limestone finials about six feet high that punctuate the roofline. There is also a swag motif above the entrance at the third level on both the north and east facades. The 1927 tower portion is of matching brick and limestone, however the detailing is neo-classical, with three-story high limestone Corinthian pilasters on floors three through five capped with a limestone cornice containing carved, circular medallions.

The upper three floors of the tower are given a similar limestone treatment excluding the Corinthian capitals, but with an ornate limestone balustrade detail at the roof and bas relief drapery and medallions immediately below it. Both the original structure and tower have paired, wood double hung windows with stone sills. Except for canopies added in the 1950s and similar vintage storefront glazing at the first floor, both sections of the building remain in their original state.