Frieze, Henry S., House

S. Frieze was born in Boston, 1817, and graduated from Brown University in 1841. In 1854 he came to Ann Arbor to occupy the chair of Professor of Latin at the University of Michigan. He purchased this property in 1859, then in the country outside of town. Family tradition and a mortgage dated 1862 indicate that the building was constructed in 1860-62. The house is shown on a map of Washtenaw County published in 1864. Frieze sold the property in 1868 to J. Austin Scott, a retired businessman from Toledo. The next year he became acting president of the university and moved to campus, since one of the perquisites of that position was an official residence. It was in his administration, in 1870, that the university first permitted women to enroll. Frieze was also an ardent patron of the arts. During his first trip to Europe he purchased, with funds appropriated at his suggestion, the collection that became the nucleus of the university Art Museum. He was curator of the museum until the end of his life. In his professional field Frieze edited several editions of Virgil and Quintilian, and was instrumental in establishing the university's chair of music. He died in Ann Arbor on December 7, 1889. In 1898 the Frieze House was purchased by Horace W. Wilgus, professor of law. His family (the son-in-law was a professor of geography), lived there until the late 1860s. The building is presently owned by another professor at the university, continuing an eighty year tradition. Formerly a country estate, the Frieze House for many years has been surrounded by rapidly-expanding Ann Arbor. It is situated on a one acre, heavily wooded lot on Washtenaw Ave, one of the major arteries of the town. Only minor alterations have been made through the years, none recently, and it is beyond question the best-designed stone Italianate house in Ann Arbor.

The Frieze House is a two-story Italianate villa with a hipped and gabled roof. A wooden cupola, an addition of the 1870s, has a concave hip roof topped by a long finial and weathervane. Exterior walls are two feet thick of dressed field stone. The stone ranges in color from black to light gray, with many red and orange examples as well. The roof is reddish-brown slate. Seen from a distance the house has an overall gray-orange hue. Exterior woodwork is light gray, enhanced by dark green shutters. The massive, double-flue brick chimneys are unaltered and add a formal touch. Generously-sized rooms are found in the interior. The living room is twenty-one by twenty-two feet, and the study is fifteen by twenty-three feet. Eleven foot ceilings are on the first floor, while those of the second are nine feet high. Four fireplaces are in the house, and the woodwork is walnut and butternut, with an oil finish. The stairway has a very substantial newel and balusters of the same materials. The lot on which the Frieze House is located is one of the most unusual in Ann Arbor, and betrays the building's country origin. It is over one acre in size, and the house has a 220 foot set-back. Nearly twenty large, mature trees shade the property, while on the ground are numerous shrubs and bushes, as well as flower beds. This landscaping is characteristic of the man for whom the house was built.