Omega Psi Phi Fraternity House

Omega Psi Phi Fraternity House

235 East Ferry Street in the East Ferry Historical District



This attractive house illustrates the architectural preferences of prosperous Detroit residents in the last decade of the 19th century. This three-story, brick-walled Tudor Style home is dominated by a turret capped with an attractive and traditional spire at one corner. The heavy and dominating arch on the second floor over the porch is Romanesque in style. Note the elaborate and attractive stone work above the front porch on the first floor. You will also see that the architect devoted efforts to create transom windows on the first floor, using attractive stonework. If you are interested in the creative and artistic use of brickwork and stonework, you could spend several weeks studying the attractive buildings erected in Detroit from the last quarter of the 19thcentury through the first quarter of the 20th. Are there many architects in the 21st century who work as creatively with bricks and large stone as Detroit architects did in a fifty-year span centered on 1900?

Omega Psi Phi was the first national Greek letter fraternity founded at an Historically Black university. It was established at Howard in 1911. The Detroit chapter, Nu Omega, was founded in 1923. In 1938, it became the undergraduate chapter for Wayne State. In 1942, the Nu Omega chapter purchased this home in what was to become the East Ferry Historic District.

Architect: Unknown to me.
Architectural style: Tudor Revival with evidence of Romanesque influences and, perhaps, the influence of the brilliant architect of the late 19th century, Henry Hobson Richardson.
Date of Completion: 1890
Michigan Registry of Historic Sites: P25190, Listed December 14, 1976
Michigan State Historic Marker: Erected September 23, 1977. This marker is visible in front of the home on East Ferry.
Web site: http://www.oppf.org/
Use in 2003: Home of the fraternity
Photo: Ren Farley, November, 2002

 

 

 

 

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