President's House, University of Michigan

The campus at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor dates from 1837. Plans for the original campus included the construction of four professors' houses and two dormitories with classroom facilities. An Eastern architect, Alexander J. Davis, drew the plans for the professors' houses.

Isaac Thompson had been hired as the contractor but was soon replaced by Harpin Lum. The President's House is one of the four original houses; all were completed in 1840. For the first decade thereafter the house was not designated as the President's House because that position was not created until 1850. Instead the office of chancellor of the university rotated among members of the faculty.

When the university's first president was appointed in 1852, the house at 815 South University was available. Thus it became the official residence of the presidents of the University of Michigan. Of the nine presidents in the university's history only Henry B. Hutchins (1909-1920) declined the official residence, preferring to stay in his Ann Arbor home.

This made it possible for former president James B. Angell (1871-1909) to live in the house in his retirement. The President's House is the only building remaining of the original six constructed about 1840, thus it is the oldest building on campus. Although it has been altered in keeping with the changing needs of the families who have lived there, the lines of its central mass have remained unchanged for over a hundred years.

The President's House is a handsome residence with a long and intimate association with one of the oldest universities in the Midwest.

The President's House constructed in 1839-1840 was initially a two-and-a-half story building of rectangular shape. The original roof appears to have had less pitch than the roof does today and to have been topped by a cupola. The house was built of brick covered with stucco. The stucco was marked to resemble mortar courses.

In the 1860s the central mass assumed its present appearance. The half story became a full third story; the roof was altered to a truncated hipped roof; double brackets were added; the cupola was replaced by a balustrade; and the house took on an Italianate cast. Later, sometime after 1875, the artificial mortar courses were filled in. The house's four chimneys and seven fireplaces are original as well as the flat roofed Greek Revival portico.

To the west of the central mass a kitchen wing was added in 1864 and a library wing in 1891. To the east the side porch built sometime before 1906 became a sleeping porch in 1920-1921. A sun parlor was constructed at the same time. During Alexander Ruthven's administration (1929-1951) a second story and rear study were added to the east wing.

A glassed-in plant room was also built at this time. The house is currently painted gray-blue with green shutters. There are now twenty-two rooms.