Julius T. Melchers House

01 / The story of this place

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Julius Theodore Melchers came to Detroit from Prussia in the 1850s and became the city's first working sculptor, carving wooden Native American figures for cigar shops around town and teaching drawing to students who included a young Albert Kahn, later one of America's most important industrial architects. In 1897, the architecture firm Donaldson and Meier designed this house for Melchers in the newly developing Indian Village neighborhood, and Melchers personally carved the ornate wooden gable above the entrance, a rare case of the building itself carrying a piece of its owner's own art. Melchers lived here until his death in 1908, and the house has remained a private residence ever since, now counted as a contributing building in the Indian Village Historic District. His son Gari Melchers went on to become a well-known American painter, keeping the family's artistic reputation alive well into the twentieth century.

1. Built in 1897 by architects Donaldson and Meier
2. Home of sculptor Julius Melchers, Detroit's first professional sculptor
3. Melchers carved the house's own entrance gable by hand
4. He taught young Albert Kahn to draw
5. Contributing building in the Indian Village Historic District