Historic Detail

The Marlborough Historic District

—Amended and excerpted from the Kalamazoo Historic District Study Committee Report - Marlborough Local Historic District. Ferraro, Sharon and O’Connor, Pamela Hall, 2006.

The Marlborough comprises its own district in the National Registry of Historic Places, a section of downtown Kalamazoo located about three blocks slightly southwest of the nexus of the central business district, at the perimeter of "downtown" and almost on the boundary line between downtown and the nearby historic district, the South Street – Vine Area Local Historic District. The building was listed individually on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 as part of a multiple-resource nomination that contained a number of other individual buildings and several districts.

This part of downtown Kalamazoo developed primarily during the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s, following the development of the center, then to the east, north and west and finally south, respectively.

The Marlborough and its yard sit on two lots, the eastern-most of which was a very large parcel (stretching through the center of the block to Lovell Street on the south.) Both parcels were occupied by houses facing South Street prior to Marlborough construction. The 1873 Atlas shows the house on the large parcel owned by First National Bank Officer and long-time Village Treasurer Latham Hull. The western, single lot with house is listed in the same atlas as owned by G.E. Hollister. The 1902 and 1908 Sanborn maps, the earliest available for this part of the city, confirm these locations.

On July 8th, 1922, The Kalamazoo Gazette announced the pending demolition of the Hull home and subsequent construction of The Marlborough, saying: "Kalamazoo's first big metropolitan apartment building, not only from the standpoint of construction and design, but also service and conveniences offered to tenants, is to be erected by the Kalamazoo Apartments Corporation at 431-445 West South street." The piece continued to confirm the location as the former Latham Hull estate, adding that it would be: "...a desirable setting for the apartment building..."

It appears, however, that construction did not begin as predicted, as the Kalamazoo Gazette later reported that it did not actually begin until 1923. The Kalamazoo Apartments Corporation hired two talented and busy Kalamazoo firms for the Marlborough's design and construction. The established firm of Billingham & Cobb did the architectural work, and well-known commercial contractor Henry L. Vander Horst was designated contractor.

The cost of construction was estimated at between $300,000 and $400,000. Materials included 230 tons of steel and an estimated 200,000 face brick. The basic design was an "H" shaped building, with long halls running north to south in each wing on floors 1-5; and the garden level fitted out for commercial use.

When complete, the Marlborough was the city's most fashionable apartment address, with approximately 75 residential units, and it stayed that way for a number of decades. Designed as a mixed-use building, the Marlborough has always had commercial and office uses filling its garden level.

In the early years, the Marlborough was home to: long-time Kalamazoo grocer and developer August Scheid; real estate broker Harry Hurni, "Investor" Chapin Dewing, son of James Dewing and grandson of industrialist William G. Dewing; bank president John Tuberty; City Assessor Lucy Little, also the city's first woman administrator; radio magnate John Fetzer; WMU professor & head of the Rural Education Department Ernest Burnham, and well-known dentist Edgar Honey. The commercial, garden units were the birthplaces of the Athena Book Shop and The (legendary) Knitting Bee.

As World War II came to a close, soldiers returned home, and a slow move out of the city to the suburbs began. Kalamazoo, like other large and small cities across the nation, began a decline; and over the next several decades The Marlborough followed suit. Marlborough changed ownership at least twice in the twenty years between 1959 and 1978.

Then, in the late 1970s, a visionary turned the building's fate. Ted Little bought the Marlborough, and using Michigan's new condominium law, began a transformation that foreshadowed the re-emerging popularity of downtown Kalamazoo as a place to live and work.

The Marlborough had suffered from deferred maintenance for several decades by the late 1970s, and was in less than stellar condition, according to Little. However, his Marlborough vision took the building through a respectful rehabilitation and recovery to its rightful status as a Kalamazoo landmark.

Little made standard changes to each floor. Most ends of the front-to-back halls in the wings were re-appropriated for residential use, adding extra floor space to those new corner condominium units.

Beginning with the top floor, the space was marketed. When the floor was half sold, construction began. Little's contractor, Bob Shannon, worked with new owners to design and build out each interior. The work resulted in substantially fewer, but significantly larger living spaces, totaling about 35. The original apartments had averaged about 740 square feet each; the renovated units average about 1,600 square feet. However, only four or five units reach that size; the others vary from about 750 to 3,000 square feet. The garden level remains in commercial use, where square footages also vary.

The entire conversion process took about fifteen years. It was early in this process that the Marlborough was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The yard to the west also had a house on it when the Hull estate was purchased for the Marlborough construction. Sanborn maps from 1932 (original and revised) first show that house in place, and then demolished. Little placed a permanent open space easement on the property with the City of Kalamazoo in 1980.

A portion of the current Marlborough parking and garage space was originally part of the Hull estate, directly adjacent to the south side of the building. This area had three houses between 1908 and 1932, according to Sanborn maps. The homes were demolished between 1980 and 1986 and the space was dedicated to occupant parking. Between 1981 and 1985, three banks of garages were constructed along the west, and south and east boundaries of this area. In 1986, and additional parcel was purchased on the east side of the east boundary (behind the present day Kalamazoo House, or Lilienfeld House); and between then and 1988, another bank of garages was constructed on the "new" east boundary behind the building.

The Marlborough is a fully-occupied, mixed-use condominium building today.

Significance of The District

The significance of the Marlborough District has been evaluated according to the criteria for listing properties in the National register of Historic Places, and meets Criteria B & C.

Criteria B: Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past.

By virtue of its architects and contractor alone, the Marlborough meets this criteria.

Billingham and Cobb, alone and together, designed, engineered or made alterations to an incredible number of Kalamazoo buildings, including, but certainly not limited to: the extant A.M. Todd Office & Factory on Douglas Avenue, Bethel Baptist Church at Westnedge & Lovell, the Colonial Apartments on Woodward, the County Juvenile Home on Gull Road, public schools, and a number of residences. They worked widely in southwest Michigan, including, but not limited to: Benton Harbor, Watervliet, White Pigeon, Three Rivers, Allegan, Stevensville, Battle Creek, Muskegon, Vicksburg, Dowagiac, Grand Rapids, Plain, Otsego, Sturgis, Holland. Colon, Lawton and Galesburg, Gobles, Climax, Cassopolis, Fennville and Parchment.

Milton Billingham was born in Michigan, and is listed respectively in the Kalamazoo 1910 and 1930 censuses as an architect and civil engineer. He lived with his family in both of what are now the Vine and Stuart historic districts. Leslie Cobb was born in Wisconsin, and is listed in the 1920 and 1930 censuses as a contractor, engineer and architect; and lived with his family in the same neighborhoods as Billingham.

It is interesting to note that a successor firm of Billingham and Cobb lives on today as Diekema Hamann Architecture.

Contractor Henry L. Vander Horst is another very well-known name in Kalamazoo architecture, constructing mostly commercial buildings, factories and schools. He worked even more widely than the Marlborough's architects, constructing buildings in several Illinois locations and Ohio, as well as southwest Michigan. Some of the extant Kalamazoo buildings he constructed include, but are not limited to: Hall House Bed and Breakfast (now Kalamazoo College’s Admissions Office) which he constructed for himself and his family); the Masonic Temple, (later used as The Rose Street Market, and now part of the Hilton Gardens Inn Complex), The Kalamazoo National Bank (now Peregrine 100); Orrin B. Hayes auto dealership on West Michigan Avenue, The State Theater, The Kalamazoo Gazette building designed by Albert Kahn, and The National Storage Building on E. Water Street. Vander Horst was a native of the Netherlands, born in Amsterdam, and lived as an orphan in Haarlem before emigrating to the United States and then Kalamazoo.

In addition to its architects and contractor, it is clear that The Marlborough did in fact meet The Kalamazoo Gazette's prediction that it would be "...a desirable setting for the apartment building...". The long list of notable and very successful Kalamazoo occupants listed above verifies that it was indeed a fashionable address for many years.

Criteria C: Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction.

The Marlborough has been typed as a Mission-styled design. There were or are three or four highly prominent Marlborough features that indicate this is an accurate identification. The first, which were lost when the building was converted to condominiums, were the simplified parapets that stood in the center of the north and south ends of each wing at the time of construction. Each was approximately 6 feet wide and stood 2-3 feet tall, and all four had curved top edges. In addition, the building's deep, sheltering eave mimics those frequently used in residential Mission designs, and is similarly topped with barrel tiles. The use of paired, colossal bracketing and decoratively-applied wrought iron also references this style. The Marlborough stands alone in Kalamazoo with these design elements, employed on an apartment building.

Now, and at the time of its construction, the Marlborough also stands out as Kalamazoo's only "alphabet" apartment building. The H-shaped plan had been used in the U.S. for a number of decades, beginning well before 1900; as it allows for maximum light exposure to the interior. However, its use was much more prominent in significantly larger cities than Kalamazoo, which sets The Marlborough apart from all other Kalamazoo apartment buildings--not only of the period, but for all time.

The alphabet floor plate designs (U, H. L, O, E, I) were popular for luxurious and middle-class apartment and office buildings. They were used on a large scale in New York after the turn of the century; and closer to home, on the Albert Kahn-designed "E" shaped General Motors Building in Detroit (now Cadillac Place.)

Because of their obvious advantages, alphabet floor plans are still employed for a number of other uses, including city, state and federal civic buildings, public schools and university dormitories.

The Marlborough is also significant because of its intentional design as a primarily residential, “mixed-use" building. Though most downtown and neighborhood commercial district buildings in Kalamazoo were designed and constructed as mixed use, almost of them have been primarily commercial, with office and residential uses secondary. The Marlborough is one of only two extant buildings that are both mixed use and primarily, the other is The Prange Building. However, The Prange Building began life as an apartment building with its street-level commercial uses were added later. This leaves the Marlborough as Kalamazoo's only example of a building that was always intended and still retains its primarily residential use, with subsidiary commercial floor space below in its garden level.