Pewabic Pottery Company

While still a young woman in Detroit, Mary Chase Perry developed an interest in china painting. In spite of her lack of formal training, she soon became proficient enough to establish a teaching studio and to deliver lectures on the art of painting china. As Miss Perry entered her late twenties, a new interest in ceramic pottery and a stroke of good luck brought her to the threshold of what was to become her national reputation as a ceramist and artist. Just as Mary Perry entered her lengthy experimentation with ceramic glazes, she discovered that a neighbor, Harry Caulkins, had recently developed a new high-heat furnace for firing dental products.

Caulkins, in turn, was delighted by the early results of Miss Perry's experiments and eagerly volunteered his own technical assistance. The two soon formed a close association which lasted until Caulkin's death in 1923. With Caulkin's help, Mary Perry set up her first pottery in an abandoned stable in Detroit in 1904. By 1907, the Pottery had moved to new quarters, the present site, designed for Miss Perry by her future husband, William Stratton.

Exhaustive experimentation and copious record-keeping eventually led Miss Perry to the discovery of brilliant new firing techniques and original iridescent glazes. Caulkin's kiln and the new firing techniques made it possible to manipulate gases present in the furnace during firing, deliberately calling for and regulating the mutations wrought by each gas on the surface of the glaze. As Miss Perry's glazing techniques became increasingly systematized, she embarked on yet another new endeavor, the manufacture of glazed architectural tile. Eventually, tile produced under Miss Perry's supervision by employees at the Pottery went into the floors, ceilings, walls, fountains, and other architectural features of St.

Paul's Cathedral, Detroit; St. Patrick's Cathedral, Philadelphia; Calvary Baptist Church, Pittsburgh; House of Good Hope, St. Paul; St. Matthew Church, Washington, D.C.; and Holy Redeemer Church, Detroit.

The Pewabic Pottery was designed and built for Mary Chase Perry by her husband, William B. Stratton. Stratton and his partner Frank D. Baldwin, were among Detroit's most influential architects in the first part of the century: their firm was the first in Michigan to be manned solely by architects trained in American schools.

The Pottery is a two-story, half-timbered building with an oversail second story designed to recall the lines and irregular plan of a Kentish inn. The first level is timber and brick, and the second is half-timbered stucco. The building has a medium hip roof with two chimneys, both offset to the left on the front and rear slopes of the roof. The eaves project over the walls and are framed with metal trim.

There are leaded, one-sash, flat, casement-swing windows in the first level, four-sash windows in the second. The single-leaf front door entrance to the Pottery is positioned off-center in the main facade of the building, with straight stairs at ground level. Space inside the Pottery is now used for display galleries, offices, studios, classrooms, and storage. Kilns are in a connecting building at the rear.