Park Avenue House

Park Avenue is very unique in Detroit for its historic urbanism -- mixed uses on a pedestrian scale -- in a city dominated by the automobile and patterns of low-density, sprawling development. The right-of-way of Park Avenue is only 60 feet wide, and buildings have no setback. This gives the street a sense of 'volume' for the pedestrian. The architecture and uses of Park Avenue are mixed: office buildings, apartments, hotels, social clubs, stores, and restaurants.

This is again unique in Detroit: the only other district in Detroit with such pedestrian volume is the lower Woodward retail district, which however did not include the residential and social functions. The architecture varies in age, style, and height, giving the street a distinct character that comes through accretion over time.

The proposed Park Avenue Historic District is comprised of thirteen primarily early twentieth-century buildings, including commercial, office, hotel, clubhouse, and apartment buildings, located on Park Avenue between West Adams and the West Fisher Freeway Service Drive in downtown Detroit. Two buildings flanking Park at its West Adams end, the Park Avenue Building and the Kales Building (fka Kresge Building), are within the directly adjacent Grand Circus Park Historic District, and thus not included in this district. Buildings in the district are from three to thirteen stories in height, with exteriors finished in brick and stone or terra cotta, and exemplify architectural styles ranging from Late Victorian (Richardsonian Romanesque-inspired) to Arts-and-Crafts, with Commercial Style most characteristic. The thirteen buildings in the district all contribute to the district's historic character.

The Royal Palm Hotel (now the Park Avenue House) is historically significant as it is the oldest hotel in the downtown Detroit area which has continually operated in its original use as a residential hotel since its construction. It is also the only hotel in Detroit of its era that is still in operation. The Book-Cadillac, the Pick-Fort Shelby, the Statler, and the Madison-Lenox Hotels all stand vacant. The Tuller and The Detroitor Hotels have been demolished.

The Park Avenue and The Eddystone Hotels have been converted to homeless shelters. The Royal Palm Hotel was built in 1924 for Lew Tuller, a noted builder of hotels and apartment houses in Detroit. Mr. Tuller came to Detroit at age seventeen from Jonesville, Michigan and began work with a construction firm.

Five years later, with capital furnished by Senator Thomas W. Palmer, he became a building contractor. He was one of the first to build apartment buildings on Woodward Avenue, north of Grand Boulevard. He constructed the Saragossa Apartments at the corner of Lothrop and Woodward and the Valencia Apartments next door.

The tremendous growth in the population of Detroit in the early 1900's due to its rapid expansion as an industrial city caused a considerable demand for temporary living space, particularly residential hotels and apartment buildings. In 1907, after acquiring land west of Grand Circus Park, Lew Tuller erected the Tuller Hotel, despite skepticism that the hotel was 'too far uptown' from the central business district. The Tuller proved to be such a success that he eventually added five stories to the original building and a few years later built an annex to add an additional 350 rooms. The overwhelming success of the Tuller Hotel inspired Tuller to create a hotel empire.

He had visions of a Park Avenue in Detroit similar to New York's. In the mid-1920's Tuller built three more hotels, the Park Avenue, the Royal Palm and the Eddystone, all along Park Avenue just north of Grand Circus Park. The hotels offered accommodations for both transient guests and permanent residents in the 'hotel district' of downtown Detroit. The hotels advertised easy accessibility to transportation with locations just one block from two important traffic avenues, Woodward and Cass.

The Royal Palm Hotel (now The Park Avenue House) is a thirteen story brick and masonry building with Italian Renaissance details located on the corner of Park Avenue and Montcalm just north of Grand Circus Park in an area once considered the heart of downtown Detroit's hotel district. The hotel entrance faces Park Avenue which is a narrow street densely filled with early skyscrapers and commercial buildings built in the early part of this century. It is one of the few buildings that has survived the decline of the neighborhood. The majority of the buildings on the street now sit vacant.

It stands one block west of the Fox Theatre, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and just east of the site of the new Tiger Stadium development. Since its construction in 1924, it has been in continuous use as a residential hotel. Although the building has undergone some alterations over the years, it is in excellent condition and still retains its original character as 'a downtown hotel with a home atmosphere.' The overall footprint of the building is rectangular, measuring ninety-two feet wide and eighty feet deep. It is thirteen stories tall (lobby and twelve floors) and is one hundred, thirty-five feet in height above finish grade.

The building sits over a full basement with a ceiling height of nine feet six inches. The lobby floor is fourteen feet in height, the first through twelve floors are approximately nine and one-half feet in height. The exterior facade material is orange brick on the east (front) and south elevations and yellow brick on the west (rear) and north elevations. On the front and south facades limestone is used at the base on the lower two floors and stone detailing appears on the upper two floors.