Albert Kahn House by Detroit Golf Club Slashes Price by $50K

When we wrote about this home in June, it had much to recommend it, including its famous architect, Albert Kahn. The 4-bedroom, 5.5-bath house, built in 1921, has arts-and-crafts curb appeal for days, two enormous Pewabic-tiled fireplaces, and ornate plasterwork depicting woodland creatures. The problems start with remodeling and so much stone that we wondered if the current owner perhaps bought a couple of bankrupt quarries.

There are clearly many great things about this house. The kitchen remodel works reasonably well, and maintains some of the home's character and a few original kitchen features. The stone, though—so much stone. The beams in the ceiling could've done without stone. Stone is expensive—we get it!—but it's also dark, heavy-looking, and better used sparingly because it's hard to get rid of. One place we don't see stone and want to is on the kitchen countertops (plain black composite) and the (nonexistent) backsplash.

Stone (in a weird assortment of colors and styles) also seems to be the flooring of choice for most of the home's bedrooms, which is especially unfortunate when you consider the reddish stone tile in one bedroom, and how poorly it works with the lovely Pewabic-tiled fireplace. The attached bath is more stone (of an unrelated type). And then there's the bathroom we called a "toilet cave" because of the brown stone on the floor and walls. Items like that make us wonder who designed the remodel, and how they could've imagined this as a good treatment of a historic home. It's a real head-scratcher.

This house started out at a fairly high price point for the neighborhood, so a reduction seems wise. Given the buzz from the sale of nearby Fisher Mansion, and this house's similar vintage and pedigree, a wise seller might have staged the place, and put in a bit of work on the walkway and yard. Will it sell at $449K? Time will tell, but the neighborhood (Detroit Golf Club, not Highland Park as the listing copy states) generally sells a little lower. Even for houses with a similar pedigree like the Richard Marr-designed Tudor just a few houses from this one that sold for $407K just last year.

·17535 Hamilton Rd [Zillow]
·Overlook the Golf Course From This $400K Mega-Tudor [Curbed Detroit]
·Albert Kahn-Designed Golf Course Estate Offered for $499K [Curbed Detroit]
·18055 Hamilton Rd [Zillow]