Raymond-DeMots House, 1902, Queen Anne Style, 449 State Street (photograph by Paul Plassman)
The 1902 Raymond-DeMots House is perhaps best-known today as the residence where Henry Ford and his wife Clara would visit Clara’s sister Kate Bell Bryant Raymond spending time on the third floor relaxing, playing cards or shooting billiards. But even without the home’s connection to America’s most famous and influential car maker, the home stands as an extraordinarily beautiful and well-preserved example of late Queen Anne style architecture—both inside and out.
The exterior and layout of the Raymond-DeMots House was designed by local builder Frank E. Smith and features an eclectic blend of architectural elements not often found together on a single Queen Anne-style home. Among them are a Colonial-Revival style cross-gable gambrel roof, a three-story turret with a neat conical top, a neoclassical Palladian window and double-decker porch with classical columns. More typical of the Queen Anne style are the home’s massive frame and elaborate windows, many of which feature leaded crystal. Originally, the front porch, which rises from a fieldstone foundation, wrapped around the turret and extended across the entire facade as was customary for the Queen Anne style. Remarkably, Smith's original drawings have been preserved and passed down with the home.
The exterior and layout of the Raymond-DeMots House was designed by local builder Frank E. Smith and features an eclectic blend of architectural elements not often found together on a single Queen Anne-style home. Among them are a Colonial-Revival style cross-gable gambrel roof, a three-story turret with a neat conical top, a neoclassical Palladian window and double-decker porch with classical columns. More typical of the Queen Anne style are the home’s massive frame and elaborate windows, many of which feature leaded crystal. Originally, the front porch, which rises from a fieldstone foundation, wrapped around the turret and extended across the entire facade as was customary for the Queen Anne style. Remarkably, Smith's original drawings have been preserved and passed down with the home.
The upper level of the porch offers spectacular, tree-house like views up and down State Street. Photograph by Peter Barr.
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The entrance to the Raymond-DeMots House features an Arts & Crafts style staircase in English oak. The door to the left leads into the formal dining room, which, like the vestibule behind you, is finished in mahogany. Photograph by Peter Barr.
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We know very little about the architect Frank E. Smith other than he was listed in the 1897 McEldowney's Lenawee County and Adrian City Directory as a "carpenter, contractor and builder" residing at 909 North Locust Street in Adrian. Two years earlier, the Daily Telegram reported that Smith had secured contracts to build or improve structures in Adrian for shoe merchant Charles Whaley and blacksmith Adam Baisch as well as two other structures. Then, in November and December 1899, shortly before Smith designed the Robertson's home, the Telegram reported that he was heading to "Monessen, Pennsylvania, to work on new buildings to be constructed there for the Page Fence Company" and had "no intention of locating permanently in Monessen."
The home's interior, like the exterior, combines various architectural styles then popular at the turn of the century including an impressive Arts and Crafts-style staircase in the entrance hall and rooms decorated in Renaissance-Revival, Neoclassical, French Baroque, and Art Nouveau styles. Leslie and Bertha Robertson, who received the house as a wedding present from her father in 1902, spared no expense on the interior. Bertha was the daughter of Adrian’s wealthiest and most powerful man, John Wallace Page, who had invented woven wire fence in the 1880s and owned Page Woven Wire Fence Company that employed more than 1300 people in Adrian, Michigan, and Monessen, Pennsylvania.
Bertha’s husband Leslie was a lawyer who had graduated from Blissfield High School in 1888 and the University of Michigan in 1891. After marrying Bertha, Leslie gave up his successful private law practice in Adrian to become Treasurer of his father-in-law’s businesses. Together, the family purchased an outdated house on this lot—just a few doors down from her parents’ home at 510 State Street—and had it torn down to make room for their own, thoroughly modern dwelling.
To finish the interior, the Robertsons hired Adrian’s master furniture maker Fernando Thieme, who was well known for crafting fine furnishings for wealthy capitalists throughout the United States. Thieme embellished their home with an extraordinary assortment of architectural styles and exotic woods “fit for a king,” as the Daily Telegram reported on September 13, 1902, creating “the most beautifully finished home in the city and even in Southern Michigan.” Not only did Thieme decorate the public rooms, as was the custom at the time, but he also finished the more private upstairs hallways and bedrooms, too.
According to the Telegram article about this home, the interior took Thieme more than seven months to complete starting in May 1902. For the vestibule’s ceiling, wainscoting and doors as well as for the dining room sideboard, buffet and silver chest, Thieme sourced solid mahogany from Central America, which he carved in a “Renaissance style.” Thieme also imported English oak for the wainscoting in the reception hall and a "rich, dark yellow” golden oak in the sitting room, which he separated from the parlor with two large neoclassical pillars. Thieme then finished Robertson’s cozy den in Flemish oak stained a rich, dark chocolate brown. The den once featured an Art Nouveau frieze extending around the room creating a “tapestry effect” that the Telegram reporter described as “simply a dream.” On the second floor, he finished one bedroom in white bird’s eye maple—in the French Baroque “Louis XIV style”—and another bedroom in "quarter-sawn sycamore finished natural.” Due to some adjacent rooms having different wood species, Thieme designed connecting doors with two faces, each matching the room it faces.
The home has been owned by several prominent families in Adrian since its construction. In the early nineteen-teens, after J. Wallace Page retired, the Robertsons relocated first to Washington, D. C., and then to Detroit, where Leslie became President of Gray’s Furniture Company. Then, in 1913, they leased their home in Adrian to E. C. Martin, who had recently moved here to operate a dry goods business specializing in men's and women's clothing. However, shortly after Martin declared bankruptcy in 1916, the Robertsons sold their home to the Samuel W. Raymond, whose family would live in it for much of the 20th century.
“Sam,” who was Henry Ford's brother-in-law, opened Adrian’s first auto dealership and service station—selling Fords, Oldsmobiles, and Fordson Tractors—located at 215 and 217 North Main Street. Raymond was also the inventor and manufacturer of car dealership equipment, including a curious, transparent gas pump called “The Raymond Visible Gasoline Station,” which he manufactured at 118 East Maumee Street. (An example of his visible gas pump has been preserved in the collection of The Henry Ford museum in Dearborn.)
During World War II the home was subdivided into six small apartments and later sided with asbestos shingles. Fortunately, in 1978, Dr William DeMots and his wife Lois purchased the home for their family and have lovingly restored and preserved it--using old photographs and F. E. Smith's blueprints to guide them. Dr. DeMots did most of the work himself and still resides in the home today.
Essay © Peter Barr, 2025
The home's interior, like the exterior, combines various architectural styles then popular at the turn of the century including an impressive Arts and Crafts-style staircase in the entrance hall and rooms decorated in Renaissance-Revival, Neoclassical, French Baroque, and Art Nouveau styles. Leslie and Bertha Robertson, who received the house as a wedding present from her father in 1902, spared no expense on the interior. Bertha was the daughter of Adrian’s wealthiest and most powerful man, John Wallace Page, who had invented woven wire fence in the 1880s and owned Page Woven Wire Fence Company that employed more than 1300 people in Adrian, Michigan, and Monessen, Pennsylvania.
Bertha’s husband Leslie was a lawyer who had graduated from Blissfield High School in 1888 and the University of Michigan in 1891. After marrying Bertha, Leslie gave up his successful private law practice in Adrian to become Treasurer of his father-in-law’s businesses. Together, the family purchased an outdated house on this lot—just a few doors down from her parents’ home at 510 State Street—and had it torn down to make room for their own, thoroughly modern dwelling.
To finish the interior, the Robertsons hired Adrian’s master furniture maker Fernando Thieme, who was well known for crafting fine furnishings for wealthy capitalists throughout the United States. Thieme embellished their home with an extraordinary assortment of architectural styles and exotic woods “fit for a king,” as the Daily Telegram reported on September 13, 1902, creating “the most beautifully finished home in the city and even in Southern Michigan.” Not only did Thieme decorate the public rooms, as was the custom at the time, but he also finished the more private upstairs hallways and bedrooms, too.
According to the Telegram article about this home, the interior took Thieme more than seven months to complete starting in May 1902. For the vestibule’s ceiling, wainscoting and doors as well as for the dining room sideboard, buffet and silver chest, Thieme sourced solid mahogany from Central America, which he carved in a “Renaissance style.” Thieme also imported English oak for the wainscoting in the reception hall and a "rich, dark yellow” golden oak in the sitting room, which he separated from the parlor with two large neoclassical pillars. Thieme then finished Robertson’s cozy den in Flemish oak stained a rich, dark chocolate brown. The den once featured an Art Nouveau frieze extending around the room creating a “tapestry effect” that the Telegram reporter described as “simply a dream.” On the second floor, he finished one bedroom in white bird’s eye maple—in the French Baroque “Louis XIV style”—and another bedroom in "quarter-sawn sycamore finished natural.” Due to some adjacent rooms having different wood species, Thieme designed connecting doors with two faces, each matching the room it faces.
The home has been owned by several prominent families in Adrian since its construction. In the early nineteen-teens, after J. Wallace Page retired, the Robertsons relocated first to Washington, D. C., and then to Detroit, where Leslie became President of Gray’s Furniture Company. Then, in 1913, they leased their home in Adrian to E. C. Martin, who had recently moved here to operate a dry goods business specializing in men's and women's clothing. However, shortly after Martin declared bankruptcy in 1916, the Robertsons sold their home to the Samuel W. Raymond, whose family would live in it for much of the 20th century.
“Sam,” who was Henry Ford's brother-in-law, opened Adrian’s first auto dealership and service station—selling Fords, Oldsmobiles, and Fordson Tractors—located at 215 and 217 North Main Street. Raymond was also the inventor and manufacturer of car dealership equipment, including a curious, transparent gas pump called “The Raymond Visible Gasoline Station,” which he manufactured at 118 East Maumee Street. (An example of his visible gas pump has been preserved in the collection of The Henry Ford museum in Dearborn.)
During World War II the home was subdivided into six small apartments and later sided with asbestos shingles. Fortunately, in 1978, Dr William DeMots and his wife Lois purchased the home for their family and have lovingly restored and preserved it--using old photographs and F. E. Smith's blueprints to guide them. Dr. DeMots did most of the work himself and still resides in the home today.
Essay © Peter Barr, 2025
Photographs © Peter Barr, June 7, 2025.
