Grosse Pointe Home Asks $3.2 Million, Throws in Rolls "Free"

Zillow

Freshly featured by the Detroit Free Press' "Michigan House Envy" column, this 5-bedroom, 6-bath, 6,317 square-foot French Normandy castle has great amenities, including a few we'd never dared imagine: a boat hoist, heated floors, an outdoor wood-burning pizza oven, a grilling area and a koi pond (not to be used in concert, we hope—not with Lake St Clair right there for legit fishing, anyway).

The award-winning kitchen in the 1929 home features marble countertops (granite is totally for peasants now), a Viking range, and a massive butcher block island. There's also a stone fireplace, one of several in the home. The house has steam showers and stone, skylights and a massive brick drive. It even comes with a 1964 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, because the driveway more or less commands that kind of thing.

While there are many, many, many nice touches, the bedrooms need updating, between too much wallpaper and wall-to-wall carpet that's seen better days. Though pulling the carpet and scraping the paper would be welcome, new homeowners should consider maintaining the original original stenciling on the closet doors—it's a sweet piece of the house's history.

According to the Free Press, the house's first owners were Marion Dwyer Palms and Charles Palms, builders of the Palms Theater and the Palms Apartments. Gail Sidlek has owned the home for the last 40 years, adding architectural items from demolished Grosse Pointe. One example of Mr. Sidlek's investment in the home is the carved paneling in the master suite's sitting room. Sidlek told the Free Press that when he bought the paneling, the wood was covered with old paint and had to be restored using dentist's tools.

While $3.2 million is a lot, the carriage house is currently rented for $2000 a month, which won't quite ease the pain of monthly mortgage payments over $11K, but it helps all the same. While we don't love all the design choices—you definitely can have too many sinks shaped like seashells—this is clearly a great old house. And it comes with a great old car, too.

·Grosse Pointe Farms stone mansion comes with Rolls Royce [Detroit Free Press]
·78 Lake Shore Road [Zillow]