Detroit may have been known as the Paris of the Midwest, but for the Chateau Frontenac, its developers went French-Canadian with their search for innovation instead.
The Chateau Frontenac was one of a number of palatial apartment buildings built in the city during the 1920s that catered to the city’s surging population and growing wealth. The eight-story, brick apartments were built along East Jefferson Avenue, not far from Belle Isle, though the building fronted on Marquette Drive.
The Frontenac was “one of several high quality apartment buildings that characterize pre-(World War II) 20th century construction along East Jefferson Avenue, once known as Detroit’s ‘Queen of Thoroughfares’,” the building’s nomination for the National Register of Historic Places reads.
Though they would not borrow the architectural style, the Detroit apartment building would borrow the name of the famed Château Frontenac Hotel, which overlooks the St. Lawrence River in Quebec City, Quebec. That world-famous institution, which opened in 1893 and remains one of the most photographed hotels in the world, was named for Louis de Buade de Frontenac, a French soldier and governor general of New France in North America during the 17th century. Both Quebec and Detroit were part of New France at one time.
The permit for Detroit’s very own Frontenac was pulled on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1925.
Living parkside
The Detroit apartments overlooked Water Works Park in an era when it was still open to the public. Indeed, ads for the Frontenac proclaimed the park to be the building’s “front yard.” This park -- which still exists today but is no longer open to the public -- would eventually encompass 110 acres with swimming and picnic areas, play equipment like swings and teeter-totters, baseball diamonds, even a library. The Frontenac’s south-facing apartments offered views of the Detroit River.
The building was designed by architect J. Will Wilson in the Mediterranean style -- with some light French Gothic touches. Its exterior was of buff brick and accented by off-white terra cotta ornamentation. All of this was topped off with a green Spanish-tile roof. Wilson designed the Frontenac in a backward-E shape in order to provide as much light as possible to as many apartments as possible. This created a shallow courtyard on the Marquette side of the building. Units overlooking the courtyard had three-sided bay windows.
The facade of the building facing East Jefferson Avenue - one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares - was surprisingly modest. The main entrance along Marquette, however, featured lovely architectural details and a fountain. Fan-like terra cotta motifs circled the second-floor, and terra cotta cartouches dotted the building.
The Otto Misch Co. did the building’s general masonry; the Livernois Construction Co. the general carpentry; and the Acme Cut Stone Co. its stone work.
When it originally opened in August 1926, the building offered 102 units, available in one-, two-, three- or four-room configurations and either furnished or unfurnished. Kitchens came with refrigerators, ventilators and electric stoves from the Lakes States General Electric Co., all state of the art at the time. Amenities included the Chateau Cafe, a small on-site parking garage for tenants, lounges and salons overlooking Water Works Park and an "enclosed party room" and Japanese garden on the roof. This rooftop sanctuary allowed residents to be “swept by the cool breezes from the park and river” while commanding a view of Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River and Belle Isle. As was trendy at the time, the Frontenac was offered many of the amenities found in hotels, such as maid service.
“If you are one of those discriminating Detroiters who appreciate the eternal fitness of things, if you want to live within the 15-minute circle of business activity, and yet want to live where skies are blue and grass is green, the Chateau Frontenac is for you,” a full-page advertorial in The Detroit News published Aug. 29, 1926, read. “It offers every substantial comfort and convenience that you could incorporate into the building of your own home. Away from the noise and dust of the city, yet but 15 minutes to the very center of things. Here you can express your individuality and live in privacy amidst an environment that leaves nothing to be desired in the way of beauty, convenience and prestige.”
And for the next several decades, it would remain a fine place to call home.
Ads in the 1930s referred to the building as "Detroit's exclusive home address." "Why swelter during hot summer months in out-of-way apartments? You'll may no more and probably less in Chateau Frontenac, where river and lake breezes make for daytime comfort and assure restful sleeping hours," a 1932 ad read. Units started at $50 a month the time. Ads also touted an attached garage and cafe.
In 1940, ads for the Frontenac offered unfurnished one- and two-bedroom apartments with new carpeting and in-kitchen units. two- to four-room units furnished or unfurnished with optional hotel service.
On Dec. 31, 1966, a fire broke out in a seventh-floor unit in the early morning hours. None of the 100 residents was injured. The blaze caused about $2,000 in damage, and a permit to repair the apartment was pulled in late January 1967. It would rebound and continue to offer homes for the next several decades.
The building struggled with occupancy and expensive repairs, putting it in financial trouble. In November 1979, the Wayne County Circuit Court ordered the 103-unit building to be sold to satisfy creditors. The price was set at $700,000.
In 1984, the Frontenac was advertising studios and one- and two-bedroom units with carpet, parking, free utilities and security at "reasonable rates." The ads described the building as being under new management.
La fin
As the city entered the 1990s, the Frontenac had become one of dozens - if not hundreds - of vacant historic apartment buildings across the city. Though almost always beautiful architecturally, by the 1970s, they were aging and in need of costly repairs and renovations. As white flight had bled the city’s neighborhoods of much of its population, it led to a decrease in home prices. Many renters in these apartment buildings were able to buy a house with a mortgage payment the same or even less than that of their apartment.
In October 1990, a Michigan limited partnership formed by Keith and Elizabeth Hunt and A.M.E. Non-Profit Housing Corporation to turn the building into a 90-unit project at a cost of about $6 million. MSHDA was to finance the project.
It didn’t happen, but hope remained that the old apartment building would find new life.
On Feb. 28, 1991, the Chateau Frontenac was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The move made it eligible for federal historic tax credits, which it was hoped would lead to its renovation. That renovation would never come.
In its nomination for the register, it was noted that, though vacant and “in poor repair, the original detail appears to be in good condition throughout the exterior elevations. On the interior, the original detailing of the lobby has been totally lost. Some cornices with leaf motifs still remain in the hallways. Wooden frame moldings still remain in the hallways of the upper stories, as do some decorative floral cornices.”
In 1994, Synergy Community Development Inc. took a stab. The developer was new to the affordable housing space in the city, but its partners had decades of combined experience. Ron Slavic was president of the Fourmidable Group, which worked in the private sector on redevelopment and new construction; William Hawkins worked with the public sector in rehabilitating homes through the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) and arranging state and federal financing for affordable housing; and James Blain was an architect.
The group set out to rehab the Chateau Frontenac and the Victor Attar Apartments in Corktown. The Frontenac was empty; the Attar had 20 residents in its 70 units. It also was in talks at the time to buy and renovate the David Whitney Building downtown.
"The Chateau Frontenac has been long abandoned and received complaints from neighboring businesses," The Detroit News reported Oct. 20, 1994.
"We would love to see it made a viable property rather than being torn down," Tony Jeffery, a planner with the City Planning Commission, told the paper. "It is a designated historic building."
Synergy hoped that the Frontenac would once again be able to attract city workers while also providing affordable housing for those with moderate incomes. Synergy was to manage the Frontenac, and joined with Bethel A.M.E. Non Profit Housing Corp. for the renovation.
"We want to make it affordable to the people who work downtown," William Hawkins of Synergy told The News. "And we think we're really making a difference in housing for people that need some form of assistance."
But five years later, the Frontenac remained shuttered. The building fell under the control of ShoreBank Development Corp. In August 1998, ShoreBank announced that it would spend $10 million to $13 million to turn the Frontenac into 88 condos. The project was to start in April 1999. It didn’t. Instead, ShoreBank decided that the Frontenac was too expensive to restore and “too far gone after years of abandonment,” the Detroit Free Press reported June 3, 1999.
Chauncey Mayfield, ShoreBank’s president and CEO, told the Free Press that it would have cost $14 million to $15 million to renovate the building, and that was more than ShoreBank could expect to recoup through rents or condo sales during that era in that part of the city.
“Structurally, the building is destroyed,” Mayfield told the paper. “It’s a gorgeous building and has a tremendous history. The numbers just didn’t work out.”
Wreckers began demolishing the Frontenac on June 1, 1999, and demolition was expected to wrap up by the end of that month.
The City’s Planning & Development Department told the Free Press at the time of the Frontenac’s demolition that plans were being made for ShoreBank to erect a new 60- to 65-unit apartment building on the City-owned site that would be cheaper than restoring the Frontenac. That never happened, either. The site has been a giant vacant lot along one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares for the past 25 years.
In 2010, the Michigan FDIC was advertising the vacant land for sale at auction. Fifteen years later, the site remains undeveloped.
The building was finally removed from the National Register of Historic Places in 2020 - almost 30 years after it was demolished.
Note: This Chateau Frontenac is not to be confused with a different building at 560 Cass Ave. (what is now 3450 Cass) that used the name from about 1914 until around 1920. Nor was it affiliated with the Cafe Frontenac that once stood on Monroe Avenue near Campus Martius.