The Biddle House was once Detroit's most luxurious hotel, and hosted a king, two U.S. presidents, famed stage actors and one of the country's most famous authors.

It was designed by A.E. Wales for a joint stock company led by Detroit businessman Luther Beecher, and erected on the southeast corner of Randolph Street and Jefferson Avenue. When it opened its doors on June 7, 1851, it became the largest hotel in the state - and one of the biggest in the Midwest. At the time, Detroit was home to only 19,000 people, and its city limits encompassed a mere 5.5 square miles.

A storied site

The Biddle House was built on the former site of Gov. William Hull's residence. Hull is best known to history buffs for being the general during the War of 1812 who surrendered Fort Detroit to the British on Aug. 16, 1812. However, he also had fought in the American Revolution and served as the first governor of the Michigan Territory, from 1805 to 1813. That made his house on the site Michigan's first governor's mansion. Next to Hull's house was a building that housed a store run by future U.S. Sen. Zachariah Chandler.

In 1817, Hull's house was bought by Elkanah Watson, the builder of the Erie Canal, who sold it in 1825 to Maj. John Biddle. Biddle would move into the mansion and tack an addition onto it, opening it as the Wales House, which later became known as the American House. Shortly after opening the hotel, Biddle would be elected Detroit's fourth mayor, holding the office from 1827 to 1828, and then serving as the Michigan Territory's delegate to Congress from 1829 until 1831.

The hotel would continue to operate until May 9, 1848, when it fell victim to a devastating fire that destroyed 80 to 100 buildings across several blocks of downtown between Jefferson Avenue and the Detroit River and Randolph and Bates streets. Having since moved to present-day Wyandotte, Mich., Biddle leased the site of his former hotel to Beecher's group, which broke ground for a new hotel the same year as the fire, in 1848. The hotel would be named after Biddle, though it is unclear whether that was a term of the lease or just a nice nod from the developers.

However, the group quickly ran into trouble financing the project, and Beecher became the sole force behind the hotel in 1849 - and would remain a force for the next four decades. Beecher is said to have described himself as being "chock full of faith, hope and eccentric notions." Orville B. and Charles Dibble would be the first to operate the hotel for him.

"For years, no one thought of the Biddle House without thinking of Luther Beecher and his tempestuous career, and no one thought of Luther Beecher without thinking of the Biddle House," the Detroit Free Press reflected Nov. 20, 1909.

The Biddle

The Biddle had a quirky cupola that appeared too small for the size of the building. It was L-shaped, stretching 112 feet along Jefferson Avenue, 150 feet along Randolph Street. It was five stories tall on Jefferson and six on Woodbridge Street. There were six storefronts along the ground floor. The main entrance on Jefferson had four 25-foot Doric columns, and the side entrance on Randolph featured a stone portico. The cost of construction was estimated in 1849 at more than $24,000, the equivalent of about $950,000 in 2025 valuation, when adjusted for inflation.

Taking out an ad in the June 11, 1851, edition of the Detroit Free Press, Orville Dibble wrote, "The undersigned begs respectfully to announce to the public that the Biddle House is now open for the reception of guests. This establishment is now furnished throughout with new and elegant furniture; lighted with gas; containing 151 bedrooms and parlors, drawing rooms and receiving parlor, all large and airy, with spacious halls and staircases - is believed to equal any hotel in the United States in point of pleasantness of location."

In 1860, the east end of the building saw the addition of the Young Men's Hall, a prominent place for conventions, speeches, operas and galas.

Advertisements proclaimed that the hotel was "strictly first class in all its appointments." It was, as the hotel's slogan said, "the traveler's perfect home." An ad that ran July 3, 1851, in the Free Press boasted: "Men of the north, we can assure you that there is now one first-rate house in Detroit - one that is kept as a house should be kept, with a view to the comfort and convenience of the traveling public."

It was one of the city's most beloved institutions, and was "patronized by Detroit's leading men and many of them with their families lived there," Clarence M. Burton wrote in his iconic tome "The City of Detroit, Michigan." The Free Press agreed, recalling in its Aug. 12, 1914, edition that the Biddle "was the center of gayety in Detroit, the fashionable headquarters affected by the wealthy men of the city and the center of the city's life after lamps were lighted."

Writing in the March 25, 1917, edition of the Free Press, Burton said, "Probably no other property in Detroit has a more interesting history than that of the Biddle House, which became famous because of its early ownership as well as from the fact that some of the world's most famous personages were quartered there or appeared in the Young Men's Hall."

Among those luminaries who visited the hall were President Andrew Johnson; Vice President Hannibal Hamlin; King Edward VIII of England when he was the prince of Wales; Mark Twain; David Glasgow Farragut, the first admiral of the U.S. Navy; presidential candidate and Congressman Horace Greeley; minister Henry Ward Beecher; Secretary of State Edward Everett; and opera legend Adelina Patti. It was said that famed 19th century actor Lawrence Barrett made his first appearance on any stage in the Young Men's Hall.

On Aug. 12, 1865, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, then the idol of the nation, visited Detroit with his wife and their four children. The city turned out to welcome him, and the reception was held in the Biddle House. The New York Times wrote that day that "the street through which the general passed was crowded with people, who greeted the distinguished visitor with loud and prolonged cheers. ... At an early hour this evening, a great number of citizens assembled in front of the Biddle House to welcome Gen. Grant to Detroit. Brief and eloquent speeches were made by Hon. Theodore Romeyn and Sen. Howard. The general, after bowing to the crowd, retired."

But when the Russell House opened Sept 28, 1857, the Biddle's days of being the finest hotel in the city were over, but it would still remain a landmark. On July 1, 1871, Beecher locked down a 100-year lease on the property for $15,000 a year - about $410,000 in 2025 valuation - from Dr. William S. Biddle (Maj. John Biddle had died in 1859).

As the years passed and business moved uptown, the hotel closed in the early 1890s. It found an unexpected use when, on Jan. 27, 1893, fire destroyed the old Capitol High School on Capitol Square. Classes were almost immediately transferred to the Biddle House, where they were held until Central High School (today known as Old Main opened in 1896.

Beecher died Sept. 16, 1893, but his estate continued to run the Biddle House. In 1898, the property was transfered to the Beecher estate.

Site of the nation's first car dealership - and several fires

In 1898, William E. Metzger became the first auto dealer in the country, when he opened a salesroom in one of the Biddle House's storefronts. Metzger had been a bicycle dealer before that and, realizing the city's future - and its fortunes - laid in the automobile, he changed gears. The first car that he sold was a Waverly Electric to Detroit furrier Newton Annis of Annis Furs fame. Metzger outgrew his storefront in the Biddle in the first year of business, and had his own business erected on the northeast corner of Jefferson Avenue and Brush Street, which is now home to DuMouchelle's.

By the time the 20th century arrived, the Biddle had become seriously outdated as a hotel and "the costly furnishings remained in the rooms, unused," Burton wrote in the Free Press on March 25, 1917. The building was opened to miscellaneous industrial uses, and, as the Free Press added Aug. 12, 1914, "no vestige of its former glory has remained. It has stood, partly vacant, simply a great pile of brick and mortar, and only served to destroy the beauty of Jefferson Avenue and retard building progress in that neighborhood. Time after time, efforts have been made to reopen the old hostelry, but every effort in this direction has failed."

At some point in this era, the Biddle and the land it sat on was acquired by the J.L. Hudson Co. Its lower floors were occupied by auto-related agencies and dealerships, including Cunningham, Jackson and Elmore sales rooms and tire shops, helping to give its stretch of Jefferson Avenue the name "Old Auto Row."

But, just as fire had cleared the way for the Biddle's construction, the aging building was swept by fire Nov. 19, 1909, possibly from one of its industrial tenants. The cars were saved from the fire, but the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. wasn't so lucky, suffering about $20,000 in losses, the equivalent of about $700,000 in 2025 money.

Further proof of its decline could be found in the Free Press' coverage on Nov. 21: "Those old stand-bys on 'Old Auto Row' got more amusement out of the burning of the Biddle House block Friday than a country kid could have had out of a regular three-ringed circus. ... If wishing had done any good, one whole brick would have been difficult to find today, as all were pulling for the total ruination of the old block."

But they would not get their wish. J.L. Hudson said the day after the fire that he had already hired the Vinton Co. to repair the damage. And in a surprise move, the upper floors were turned into apartments.

Then flames would ravage the building again, on Aug. 11, 1914. The Free Press wrote the following morning on its front page that the blaze "caused one of the worst panics the fire and police departments have had to contend with in years." More than 150 people were living in the building - "most of these were foreigners and of highly excitable nature," the Free Press noted. Firefighters thought they had knocked down the fire in the southwest corner of the building after two hours, even sending the firefighting apparatus away, before it was realized that the fire had penetrated a fire wall and jumped across a court to start burning the front of the building along Jefferson. The flammable materials used in the garages and automobile-related businesses were thought to have fed the flames. Business tenants at this time included the Great Western Oil Co., the Fiske Rubber Co., Pennsylvania Tire Co., Buffalo Gasoline Motor Co.and O'Connor & Steward Radiator Works.

As the fire started bursting from the windows of the apartments, "the tenants were thrown into a frenzied panic. Many of those who had gone to the street tried to rush back into the building to save their meager belongings. When the police and firemen tried to prevent the excited tenants from entering the building, which then seemed doomed, the panic-stricken foreigners fought madly to get into their apartments. Women fainted and men struggled wildly. ... Although long tongues of flame were bursting from nearly all the windows of that portion of the building occupied as a tenement, the occupants insisted upon forcing their way in, though it was apparent it would be death to enter what was then a seething furnace."

Somehow, the western half of the Biddle survived and managed to survive for another two years. That is, until Aug. 13, 1916, when the Free Press announced that "part of one of the Jefferson Avenue landmarks is to be torn down to make room for a new home for A. Krolik & Co. wholesale clothing dealers." Krolik bought the bones of the Biddle off Hudson's, and hired architect Albert Kahn to design a 12-story reinforced concrete structure on the site. Demolition was completed in early 1917.

"Did any city ever have a structure which occupied precisely the same relation to its history as the old Biddle House occupied to Detroit history?" the Detroit Free Press asked Nov. 20, 1909. "Of late years, it had ceased to supply the front-page newspaper stories for which, at earlier dates, it used to form a subject about twice a week."

And more than a century after its destruction, that iconic landmark that had hosted everything from presidents to kings to the nation's first auto dealership has been almost completely forgotten.