W. R. Hamilton Co. Funeral Home

01 / The story of this place

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The William R. Hamilton Co. funeral home occupied a three-story house from the early 1890s at Cass Avenue and West Alexandrine Street, later enlarged with a mortuary addition. After Harry Houdini died at Grace Hospital on October 31, 1926, his body was brought here. The Budapest-born escape artist was embalmed and laid in the bronze, glass-lidded casket he had meant to use as a stage prop; the casket was then crated, trucked to Michigan Central Station and sent by train to New York for his funeral. The funeral home sold the property in 1979, and from 1981 it housed the Arts Center Music School, which closed in the late 2000s. The empty buildings deteriorated, and a lightning strike in October 2016 set a fire that holed the roof. After the school fought off a deed-fraud scheme, it transferred the property in 2021 to actor Hill Harper's Pierce and Hill Harper Arts Foundation, which in 2024 said it would raise money to restore the building for youth arts education.

1. Houdini was embalmed here after his death on October 31, 1926
2. His bronze casket left by truck for Michigan Central Station and New York
3. Sold by the funeral home in 1979; a music school used it from 1981
4. Owned since 2021 by the Pierce and Hill Harper Arts Foundation