Friend-Hack House

The Friend-Hack House is Milan's best example of Eastlake design and is all the more notable for its naive, free-hand painted wall and ceiling decorations. The house was originally the home of Mrs. Olive E. Friend, an important figure in the short-lived career of the Electric Sugar Refining Company. The company, organized in 1884 to capitalize on the alleged invention by Mrs. Friend's husband, Henry C. Friend, of a new means of refining raw sugar by electricity, collapsed in January, 1889, when the process was determined to be a fraud. The house was built for Mrs. Friend probably shortly after her husband's death.

Standing at the east edge of the village of Milan on the street which forms the Washtenaw-Monroe County line, the Friend or Hack House is a rambling, two-story, gable-roof building with an L-shaped front section and one-story side and rear ells. This clapboarded, Eastlake dwelling has kingpost gable ornaments and diagonal boarding in the gables and extensive, arcade-like verandahs. The grounds also contain a gable-roof wash house/ summer kitchen, small clapboarded outhouse, a carriage house/stable, and chicken coop.