KENT-SCHILZ-NELSON HOUSE
327 Harrison Street

1891 Eastlake
2004 Home Tour

The house is one of three nearly identical homes along Harrison Street built by Edwin Kent in 1891.  The Kents were early settlers in Oneida Township.  Edwin’s father was Peter Kent, who at one time owned the whole block between West Scott and Jefferson, and from Harrison to the middle of the parking lot behind the stores along South Bridge.  Peter was born in New York, and he was a millwright by trade. He came to Portland, Michigan in 1836 to build a sawmill, making the long journey from New York mostly on foot.  He bought farm property in Oneida Township and moved his wife Eliza and four children here from New York. They lived on the farm and Peter built sawmills in the area.  His brother, Francis Kent, owned the land where Grand Ledge High School and Neff School stand today.  The Kents and the Hixsons ran the grist mill on the north bank of the Grand River, opposite where the Opera House stands today. 

Peter Kent built the house at 127 West Jefferson in 1861 and moved into town.  His son Charles Kent built the house next door at 119 West Jefferson.  Edwin Kent and his wife Marsela McPeek Kent lived in the corner home with Peter and Elizabeth.  Peter died in 1883.  Edwin built the three nearly identical properties extending from behind his parents’ home back to Scott Street in 1891.  It cost him $2700 to build all three houses.   They were built as rental houses, but they were well-built with quality craftsmanship, and attracted the professional and middle class renters.  Edwin’s mother, Eliza, lived in one of them--#315—after  her husband died. 

Grand Ledge very much needed rental housing at the end of the nineteenth century.  The town was in a period of growth and prosperity, with factories, a booming resort, and agriculture providing a solid local economic base.  The workers needed homes, and rental properties meant that the property owner had a source of income.  The Grand Ledge Independent described the glories of Grand Ledge in 1888:  “Grand Ledge is situated in Oneida Township, near the northern line of Eaton County and is an important station on the D., L. & N. and G. R., L & D. railroad, 11 miles from Lansing, 52 miles east of Grand Rapids, 26 southeast of Ionia, and 96 from Detroit.  Charlotte—the county seat, is 16 miles southwest.  The village was settled in 1837, incorporated in 1871 and derives its name from the surrounding bluffs, which rise to a height of from 75 to 100 feet along the banks of the Grand River, which is at this point a beautiful stream, some 300 feet in width.  A substantial dam with a fall of seven feet is made to furnish one of the best water powers in the state, in part utilized by saw, cider, and jelly, flour, and planing mills, and chair and table factories, foundry and machine shop, besides which a flouring mill, two machine shops, a foundry, and saw and planing mills are operated by steam.  Artificial stone and tile works, marble works, a cooper shop, and fruit evaporation also give employment to a number of hands.  Extensive beds of sand stone, valuable for building purposes, are found in the immediate vicinity, underlying which is a stratum of excellent coal and fire clay.  Four coal mines are being operated and 30 men employed which number it is confidently expected will be largely increased as this industry develops. The village has two handsome union school buildings recently erected at a cost of $17,000, four churches, two grain elevators, three hotels, two banks, and two newspapers.   The streets and the principal stores are well-lighted by electricity, giving the place somewhat of a metropolitan appearance.  The Jenny system of electric lighting is used, and the plants owned and operated by the village. A handsome railroad bridge, 72 feet from the water, and 585 feet in length crosses the Grand River at this place and was erected at a cost of $50,000.  The Seven Islands pleasure resort, just below the village is an attractive feature.  It is estimated that from 60,000 to 70,000 people visited these islands during the past season.  Lumber, stones, furniture, flour, grain, fruit, and livestock are the leading shipments.  Telephone facilities are afforded by Michigan Bell Telephone Company. Population 2000.”   

The three nearly identical houses were rented to a variety of people in the town over the next few decades, from doctors and lawyers to factory workers and retirees. Albert and Alberta Rueckert bought the house at #327 in 1919. Albert was 68 at that time, and Alberta was 63.  They came to this country in 1883 from Prussia.  The couple had nine children, four born in Germany and five born in the United States. Albert was a retired farmer.  Alberta died in April 1924 and in September Albert sold off his household goods and moved out of the house.  A month later, in October, The Grand Ledge Independent reported that Mr. and Mrs. Harry Funtukis moved into the Rueckert home as tenants.  Albert Rueckert died in 1925. His obituary had a touching note: “...his body was placed in the mausoleum, beside his wife, for whom he never ceased to mourn.”  Albert’s will left the house to his daughter, Bessie Rueckert.  She sold it to a Grand Ledge businessman, Fred Lamphere.  It was a rental property for the Lampheres.

Lewis (aka. L. Roy) and Luella Valentine bought the house in 1927.  The house was valued at $2600 according to the 1930 U.S. Census.  Lewis was a cabinet maker at the Grand Ledge Chair Company.       

In 1943 the Valentines sold the house to Mrs. Marion Schilz, widow of Dr. Edward Schilz.  Dr. Schilz was a medical doctor who established his practice in Grand Ledge in 1899.  The Schilz family lived in the large Italianate home that was later the Catholic rectory and more recently Smith Bros. law offices.  Dr. Schilz died of a heart attack in 1937.  Marion stayed in the large house for several years before moving to the smaller house on Harrison Street.  One interesting footnote is that the house next door, at #321 Harrison, was owned by Dr. Schilz’s long-time nurse, Ruby Winfield, and her sister, Belle Winfield.  Ruby took care of the elderly Mrs. Schilz.  Marion Schilz died in South Dakota in 1962.  Mrs. Schilz probably made the first major change to the home.  City Hall records show that the house was remodeled in the 1940s.  An apartment was added upstairs, and city directories from 1953 and 1956 show that Chares H. Brown and his wife Fae lived there.  Charles worked at Maxson Kinne Drug Store in town.  It was not unusual for homeowners to add apartments to their homes or to rent out rooms during the hard housing times that followed World War II.  Even the prominent families in town did it.  There was little housing construction during the war years. As the economy returned to a peace-time footing, there was a housing shortage as servicemen came home to their families and their civilian jobs.

 Henry and Ema Nelson bought the house in 1959.  Henry was a long-time teacher at Grand Ledge High School where he taught woodshop and mechanical drawing.  He retired from teaching in 1964, but he remained an active member of the community.  He and Ema were members of the Methodist Church and Henry was involved with the Boy Scouts.  Ema taught Sunday School for many years and worked in the church kitchen.  They had two children, Paul and Delores.  Henry died in August 1983.  Ema stayed in the house until she moved to Bad Axe Michigan to be near her daughter, where she died in October 1997.  The house was sold in 1996 to Deborah Howland. 

In 1997 Deborah Howland remodeled the house for her father.  The kitchen was completely modernized and outfitted with new cupboards at that time.

Vicki Paski and her partner, Ron Maguire, bought the house from Ms. Howland in 2003. The house is undergoing changes again as it is adapted to meet the needs of the YES house program. YES is an acronym for Youth Enrichment Services, a community organization working with other local groups and the Grand Ledge Schools to provide after school activities and programs to middle school children.  There have been cooking classes, pool tournaments, and special projects and activities for the kids.  The main floor has a pool table, and in order to accommodate that, a wall was taken down.  The front formal parlor is now a game room, and the old hallway upstairs has been opened up for a “Quiet Activities” area.  The small attic storage area is now a modern bathroom, and there are storage closets with plenty of room.

Of the three “sister” houses on Harrison, this one has seen the most remodeling and changes.  It seems impossible to know the exact layout or the sequence of changes that happened here over the years, but we can get some idea of what the house used to look like from its two neighbors to the north.  The Eastlake style was popular in the United States during the later years of the Victorian period. The house style was simple enough to be quick and relatively inexpensive to build, and could be adapted from the simpler form for a worker’s home to more embellished forms for the upper class.  Charles Eastlake stressed simplicity of design and function.  His patterns appeared in books and people were easily able to adapt his plans to suit their own needs and environments. 

Inside the house, there was a formal parlor on the front of the house with its own separate entrance.  Another door entered the everyday living room, which flowed into the dining room.  The kitchen was off the side of the dining room on the back of the house.  There was usually a small downstairs bedroom off of the living room.  The stairway in these houses was enclosed, without the formal foyer of more elegant homes, and the door to the stairs usually opened off of the living room or dining room.  The stairs would have opened into an upstairs hallway, and there were usually two or three more bedrooms upstairs, often with a small attic storage space. There were usually two or three porches on these homes, one on the front and one or two off the dining room and kitchen.  In fact, there is still an exterior door on the north side of the house that would have opened on to a small porch which is no longer there.  On the exterior, the hooded windows,  ornamentation in the peak of the front gable, and the intersecting gables gave these Eastlake homes their distinctive style. 

The changes and modifications that were done to this house over the years make it distinctive from its “sister” houses.  The front porch has been incorporated as a front entryway with a spiral staircase leading to the second floor. If you open the basement door, you see the remains of an old stairway leading to the second floor.  Upstairs, the floor plan has been opened up and it is hard to distinguish the original lay out of the bedrooms.  The little attic space over the back of the house is now a bathroom. There are still some of the original touches in the house:  there are old-fashioned light switches, original glass in some of the windows, original bulls-eye corner medallions and woodwork, and several of the light fixtures appear to be original to the house.  The house is a blend of old and new, and it promises to be hub of community activity, and we are so pleased that it has been adapted to these modern times and uses instead of being torn down and replaced.