Stratton House
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Stratton House is an opus to one couple’s love of design.
Designed and built during the 1920’s—the later years of the Arts and Crafts movement in America—Stratton House in Grosse Pointe Park remains relevant in today’s world of design. Artist Mary Chase Perry and Architect William B. Stratton designed a home personal to them, rooted in an English Arts and Crafts manner with flairs of modernity. Its seemingly simple bones and restrained architectural elements culminate in a timeless design lauded for decades by academics and beloved by families residing within its well-planned walls.
- Quick Facts
- 938 Three Mile Drive in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan
- Created by William B. and Mary Chase Stratton
- Designed and built in the late 1920’s
- Arts and crafts style
- 5500 square feet
- 5 bedrooms, 4 full baths, 2 powder rooms
- Listed on the National Register of Historic Places
Architectural Ingenuity
Stratton House invokes a sense of understated genteelness, yet the architecture is far from simple. Each room was designed to bring in light and connect inhabitants with the gardens outside. Cleverly built to exaggerate the grade changes in the garden, the interior spaces maximize the effects of perspective on the relative street elevation. The humble lines of the architectural facade reveal true magic once one enters via the front door. Immediately confronted by the view of the rear terrace and garden through a set of three Palladium doors, one hardly notices the feat Stratton overcame at the time, especially in an arts and crafts home. Stratton House broke many molds. For example, it was one of the first homes in Michigan to use structural steel, making the open dining room possible.
Gardens and Landscape
Designed by the Strattons with Raymond Wilcox, elegant gardens evoke the spirit and ethos of Gertrude Jekyll or M. H. Baillie Scott. Designed to hug the house with formal and wild spaces, a series of garden rooms enliven the views from the house. This carefully orchestrated dance between architecture and green space was beautifully executed and continues in fine form today.
The Architect and the Artist
Mary Chase Perry and William B. Stratton were important figures in Detroit’s creative legacy. She was the artist and founder of Pewabic Pottery, and he a successful architect—they helped found the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, now known as CCS, the College for Creative Studies. William’s design sensibilities were evolving, and his close friendship with Eliel Saarinen would also manifest in Stratton House. Together with Mary, their creativity allowed Stratton house to rise above most residential projects of the time.
Care and Preservation
Through these many years, a few key families have cared for, preserved and worked to restore the Stratton House. This architectural contribution to the American canon has a safe legacy, thanks to those looking out for this magical home and garden estate in Grosse Pointe Park.
On this website, you will find photographs, documents, anecdotes, and other stories that span the decades, from those taking care of the house and calling it home: The Stratton, Brackett, Morison, and now Morici-Nieradka families.