Henry Gilbert House: 415 W. Lovell St.

Second Home of Gazette Founder

The Henry Gilbert House represents one of Kalamazoo’s most handsome Queen Anne’s. Cleverly designed with unique features, the house showcases the excellence of Victorian-era craftsmanship. The home was built in 1888, just about the time when Gilbert had retired from active community and business affairs. Gilbert had previously owned a home on the corner of W. Lovell and S. Rose Street. This house would later be referred to as the Kauffer House, where it would house both the Kalamazoo Public Museum and the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts during the 1930s and 1940s.

Known primarily as the man who founded the Kalamazoo Gazette, the native New Yorker’s activities were numerous, including time spent as the Village President, the owner of a furniture business and as a local real estate salesman. He also served as trustee for the Michigan Female Seminary. Around 1870, he was considered Kalamazoo’s wealthiest citizen. He and his second wife Myra resided in the home at 415 W. Lovell Street for a decade before they both passed away on the same day (7 February 1898). The Eastside Neighborhood avenue bears the famous newspaperman’s name.

The home would continue to shelter prominent local businessmen, including William Shakespeare Jr., the founder of the Shakespeare Company, and Dimmen denBleyker, the son of Dutch pioneer Paulus denBleyker. In 1948, Ethol Hotelling and her Millinery Shop moved into the home. After twenty years of primarily focusing on selling hats to women, Hotelling added to her apparel boutique, women’s dresses, jewelry and gloves in the early 1950s when hats had become less popular. She went on to run a successful store out of the Gilbert House until the late 1980s. Today, Scott Tribby sells and repairs musical instruments from the home.

From the National of Historic Places Nomination Form:

“Although small in scale (smaller than many of the town’s finest Queen Anne homes) the house is a very sophisticated composition. The wooden detailing of the house illustrates late Victorian craftsmanship at its best. The façade is composed of a projecting gable which is visually balanced by a small, open porch. The projecting gable has beveled corners at the first floor level which are ornamented by brackets in a sunburst pattern. The moldings around the windows demonstrate bulls-eye cornerblocks. The face of the gable (which dominates the home) utilizes such fanciful items as zig-zag shingles, a large round-headed window and a paneled bargeboard. The porch employs fine, lathe-turned posts and balusters.”

Written by Ryan Gage, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, April 2024