Where now sits a parking lot once stood a stunning Albert Kahn-designed hotel.

This 230-room, eight-story hotel opened in 1914 as a free-standing addition to the still-standing Addison Apartment House next door. It would later become a separate hotel that would go by the names Reid Hotel and, for the longest period of the time in the building's life, the Earle Hotel.

Adding on to the Addison

The original Addison was built in 1905 on the northwest corner of Woodward Avenue and Charlotte Street and was designed by the Detroit firm Field, Hinchman & Smith. Its owners said that "their principal motive has been the solution of the 'servant problem'" that would offer "the exclusiveness of a home and the convenience of a hotel." This meant that tenants could have the housekeeping and other amenities of a hotel, but in an apartment building.

This six-story, 125-room building was owned and operated by the Addison Apartment Co., whose president was William Marlow, a contractor and builder. For that reason, it is unsurprising that the first Addison was built by Marlow Bros. Edwin L. Thompson, president of the Detroit Lumber Co., was the Addison Apartment Co.’s vice president, so they likely got a good deal on the wood used in the project, too.

For the first Addison’s first eight years, it was said that the building had a waiting list. That led the Addison Apartment Co, to “not hesitate when the time came for enlargement,” the Detroit Free Press wrote Feb. 22, 1914.

The firm hired Kahn to design a 230-room addition of reinforced concrete and steel faced with red-pressed brick. The addition cost $325,000 to construct, the equivalent of about $10.5 million in 2025, when adjusted for inflation. The new building was connected to the old by a tunnel, as well as passageways on the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors.

When combined with the 170 in the original building, the addition gave the Addison a combined 400 rooms, making it the largest apartment building in the city at the time. It was said at the time of the new building’s opening that 80 percent of both building’s 400 units were occupied. Fifty of the units were set aside for transient guests; the remainder were for permanent tenants.

Each of the 400 units had its own bathroom, an amenity back in the day. The Free Press called the enlarged Addison “the finest apartment hotel in the Middle West, and one which rivals any in New York or Chicago.”

For the New Addison, as it was known at first, Kahn and the Addison’s owners visited hotels in cities around the country to bring the best features to their new hotel. “These observations led to something that is more up to date than any other hotel of its kind, for only the best features were appropriated in working out the scheme of the structure, where families may live with all of the conveniences imaginable and none of the discomforts of housekeeping,” the Detroit Free Press wrote Feb. 22, 1914. “Nothing that is desirable seems to have escaped Mr. Kahn, and Mr. Malow carried out his plans to the letter. … Its location is exceptional, as it is but a few steps from the streetcars, yet far enough away from them and (Woodward) avenue to escape noise and dust.”

George C. King, the Addison Apartment Co.’s secretary and treasurer also would serve as the general manager for the two buildings.

“There is nothing worthwhile in any of the big apartment hotels in New York or Chicago which cannot be found in The Addison,” King told the Free Press for the Feb. 22, 1914, story. “We have spent years in bringing it to perfection, making notes of attractive and convenient things long before we disclosed our ideas to Mr. Kahn. The completed work is the last word in this sort of hotel, and we feel that either for families or for transients, we have the most desirable place to stop in Detroit.”

The Free Press said that led to a “splendid result, a building with which no fault possibly could be found. … It is one of the structures of which Detroit well can feel proud. The Addison is an instance of the combination of art and utility so that the blending produces a structure at once pleasing to the eye and one in which convenience has not been sacrificed.” It was “a family hotel that which there is none better in the country.”

A peek inside

Entering the building off Charlotte Street, one would step through oak doors into a vestibule of light-colored Italian and Tennessee marble. Entering the main lobby, which ran north and south, guests were surrounded by walls of natural oak and ivory-colored plaster ceilings. Large easy chairs with “inviting upholstery” lined the lobby. Following the lobby toward the main dining room, you would pass through the lattice court, with English ivy growing up the walls. Along either side of this court were tables, where tea was served at any time.

“No hotel in the city (has) a lobby of such graceful lines and proportions,” the Free Press gushed Feb. 22, 1914.

On the lobby’s east wall was a large fireplace of cut stone, “very plain but wonderfully attractive and in keeping with its surroundings,” the Free Press said. To the east off the lobby was a reception room for women that was screened from the main corridor - “a cozy nook it is, indeed,” the Free Press gushed.

There were two dining rooms on the main floor, which could accommodate 800 guests combined. The main dining room, measuring 100 by 60 feet, had a high ceiling and was awash in natural light. Done in light gray, ivory and with blue hangings and a cork-tiled floor, the Free Press wrote that its “colors are subdued. There is nothing to jar the eye, it is peaceful and elegant.” There was a balcony for musicians over the entry to the serving room, to provide diners with live entertainment.

There were also four private dining rooms - finished in walnut and with an old rose color scheme - running the depth of the building and to the east of the main lobby. They were divided by folding doors that could be opened into a banquet hall that could fit up to 300 people.

Two passenger elevators were located on the west side, between the entrance and the office. Opposite them was a cigar and newsstand.

In the basement, there was a rathskeller offering German fare and done up in fumed oak with yellow hangings and lantern-style fixtures. This lower level also was home to a billiards room with four tables on a cork-tiled floor, as well as a five-chair barbershop. The basement was also home to the men’s writing room and a 100-by-40-foot kitchen that had a 15-foot ceiling. The food was set up to the main floor by a monostrand elevator that traveled at a rate of 35 feet a minute.

A roof garden was planned to be installed, but it’s unclear whether this was completed. The owners also planned to construct a 150-foot-by-180-foot parking garage on property across Charlotte.

The rooms were arranged so that suites could be of two, three, four or five rooms. At the time of the New Addison’s opening, they were unfurnished. The two-room suites rented for $35 to $50 a month (about $1,125 to $1,600 in 2025), the three-rooms for $45 to $75 ($1,450 to $2,400); the four-rooms from $90 to $100 ($2,900 to $3,200); and the five rooms from $115 to $125 ($3,700 to $4,000). The 50 transient rooms ranged from $1.50 a day and up, or about $48 in 2025.

The building was opened to the public for inspection on March 3, 1914.

Other tenants

On Feb. 16, 1917, the Addison hosted the first Scarab Club masked ball in its ballroom. The theme was costumes from the year 2017, “and freaky as are the costumes of the 1917 period, those 100 years hence will be the limit and then some more if the ideas advanced by the Scarab members are carried out,” the Detroit Free Press wrote the following day. “Futurist artists were in their glory at the ball, for in some of the costumes their wildest dreams were realized.”

In the 1920s and ‘30s, the New Addison was home to Harry Abbott’s Music Box, “Detroit’s new palace of joy,” featuring Ali Aliji & His Music Box Orchestra of 12 Joy Dispensers. The New Addison also featured the Florentine Room, featuring food and dancing to music by Joe Reichman’s Florentine Orchestra. On Oct. 24, 1929, a nightclub called the Bal Tabarin - meaning “Fool’s Ball” and borrowing from the name of a famous Parisian cabaret - opened in the Addison, but it’s unclear in which building. The opening night featured trumpeter Henry Busse, the ballroom dance team of Cortez and Peggy and Frankie James, who appeared with Al Jolson in “Big Boy.”

On Aug. 17, 1931, William Ryan held up a cigar store at 25 Watson St., escaping with $21. A passing police officer gave chase, and a bystander was shot in the shoulder. Ryan ran into the Addison Hotel, where he was shot by officers in the thigh and arm as he jumped out a window of the hotel. The 29-year-old had a record featuring 54 arrests at the time - not counting the cigar stand stick-up.

Hard times

Amid the Great Depression, the Addison was shuttered and fell into the hands of the Detroit Trust Co. By 1931, the Detroit Trust Co. had taken control of dozens of apartment buildings and hotels in the city as the nation fell upon hard times. It made some attempts at operating them, but ultimately decided it was easier to just close them down until they found a buyer. In the interim, the creditors liquidated furniture and hotel wares in an attempt to recoup some of their money.

A massive auction was held at the Addison on May 25, 1932, at which 300 dressers and chiffoniers, 10,000 yards of carpet and rugs, 300 beds and mattresses, 100 living room suites and hundreds of chairs, desks, tables, lamps and more were put under the hammer. The two Addison buildings would be among them and would sit vacant for five years.

In July 1937, the City of Detroit looked into buying the two Addison buildings for about $242,000 (about $5.4 million in 2025) to run as low-income housing. The city was facing a shortage of so-called welfare housing during the Depression. Albert Cobo, the future mayor but then the City’s treasurer, said that outside of being dirty and somewhat vandalized, the Addison buildings were in good condition. The cost of rehabbing 160 suites across the two buildings - necessary as the Addison’s rooms did not have kitchens - would have cost another $118,000, about $2.6 million in 2025. The City decided to pass.

That same month, on July 29, 1937, the Addison was bought by Milner Hotels on a $75,000 land contract ($1.7 million in 2025) from the Detroit Trust Co., and the building’s name was changed to the Reid Hotel. Milner would spend another $75,000 on remodeling and redecorating. Three of the eight floors were refurnished by mid-October 1937 and were ready for occupancy. Under the new ownership, rates were set at $1 to $1.50 a day ($22 to $33 in 2025) and $5 a week ($111).

The Milner empire

Milner was a Detroit-based nationwide chain, launched by Earle R. Milner. He was born in Wardsville, Ontario, on Aug. 18, 1891, and came to Detroit in 1915, where he attended the University of Detroit Law School for two years. He got his first job as an office boy for the Vapor Soap Co., where he later was made an accountant. He worked as a theater usher and at a shoe store to make enough money to realize his dream of opening his own hotel. He saved up enough to buy a small hotel on Howard Street in 1916, but lost it. He then bought the Royal Hotel on West Fort Street, but his career as a hotelier was interrupted by serving in the Army during World War I.

In 1930, he decided to give it another go, basing his business model on his experience as a traveling salesman in the years in between. “He offered free laundry and austerity standards at a reasonable price, a combination hard to find even in Depression days,” the Free Press wrote Feb. 18, 1951.

With a short lease on the first Norton Hotel on the northwest corner of West Jefferson and Griswold, he was on his way. Milner acquired leases on two other Detroit hotels, and then expanded into Flint and Ann Arbor. By the time Milner acquired the former Addison in 1937, the chain owned 104 hotels from coast to coast, including 14 in the Detroit area.

At the time of Earle Milner's death following a lengthy illness on June 23, 1947, at his Grosse Pointe Park, Mich., home at age 55, the hotel chain was one of the largest in the world, with 176 hotels across the country, but was down to eight in Detroit: the Reid, the Milner; Taft 40 Davenport St.; Edison, 140 Sibley St.; Penn, 711 Third Ave.; Ohio, 822 W. Fort St.; Carlton, 8043 Woodward Ave.; and the Griswold on Capitol Park; and one in Highland Park (the Astor, at 16½ La Belle St.). Milner also controlled 48 corporations, including laundries and the Milner Co., a hotel supplier.

In 1938, African-American employees of the Reid walked out and applied for membership in the Local 705, Hotel and Restaurant Employees Alliance (AFL). In February 1939, 10 Black maids at the Reid also went on strike, demanding a minimum wage of $60 a month, about $1,400 in 2025. This left the hotel’s 200 guests without room service, and, “following the deluge of complaints from guests,” management reopened negotiations with the employees.

“Although this local had few colored members at this time, these people were welcomed with open arms,” the Michigan Chronicle recounted in its April 18, 1942, edition. “Then followed a long, drawn-out controversy which was featured by a unique measure of inter-racial solidarity: white hotel workers picketing side-by-side with their colored brothers and sisters, united in a common cause.”

Picket lines went up at all 11 Detroit-area Milner hotels.

Four years later, in 1942, Milner Hotels finally caved, giving about 125 Black employees across its Detroit properties an increase of $2.50 to $3.15 per week, or an extra $51 to $64 in 2025 valuation.

Reid ‘em and weep

The 1940s were a rough time for the once glamorous hotel.

On Jan. 26, 1942, Detroit police raided a room at the Reid in a crackdown on an illegal gambling operation. Cops seized 31,800 betting tickets and a large amount of gambling paraphernalia. Sixteen people were charged in what police allege was a $3,000-a-day business, worth about $61,000 in 2025.

In July 1945, police took 19-year-old Elizabeth Miller and 31-year-old William Miller - both tenants at the Reid - into custody in connection with the death of fellow tenant John Myers, 50, an employee of the Packard Motor Car Co. Myers had been found in his room at the Reid, where he had been lying unconscious for two days, and died two hours after arriving at Detroit Receiving Hospital. An autopsy showed that he had died from a cerebral hemorrhage following a brain concussion. He had withdrawn $139 (about $2,500 in 2025) from a bank a few days before his death, but no money was found in his room. Elizabeth Miller had admitted dating Myers four or five times but denied going out with him in the last month. The newspapers never reported on the case being closed.

Early Oct. 17, 1947, a pair of bandits held up The Reid and locked 52-year-old clerk George Turner in a large safe. He freed himself after police guided him through unscrewing the safe’s combination lock with one of his keys from inside after rescuers were unable to get him out. “I was a lot safer in the safe than with those thugs,” Turner told the Free Press for a story the following morning. The pair got away with $152.50, or about $2,200 in 2025.

There were also at least three suicides in the building in the 1940s. One of them was a 78-year-old woman named Flora M. Walter, who hanged herself in her room at the Reid in November 1941. Her body was found by a clerk on Nov. 4 with more than $5,000 in cash (about $104,000 in 2025) in her pocketbook. In a safety deposit box was found $43,500 in U.S. Treasury bonds, certificates of deposit and postal savings certificates - worth about $906,000 in 2025, as well as a faded letter in German signed with the name “Bismarck.” In a note she left behind, she left a good chunk of the bonds to the federal government, declaring that she had always been a good citizen. Where all the bonds came from was a mystery, as a relative told the Detroit Evening Times for a Nov. 20, 1941, story, “The way she lived, I didn’t think she had much money.” Family said she had come to Detroit about 20 years earlier, and apparently lived off an inheritance from her father, a manufacturing chemist from Lawrenceburg, Ind.

Perhaps after all these negative headlines, Milner decided to give the Reid a new name to shake its bad image. The chain had a subsidiary called Earle Hotels, which operated at a slightly higher price level. By December 1948, the Reid had been rebranded the Earle. In the early 1950s, rooms at the Earle would run you $6 to $9 per week. A decade later, monthly rates were advertised as being $40 to $43.50.

In 1951, the hotel company was operating 184 hotels in 39 states.

The strugglin’ Sixties

In February 1962, a troupe called The Stables Coffee House Theatre moved into the basement of the Earle for what the Detroit Free Press called Nov. 24, 1963, “a drafty sojourn.” Actress Lily Tomlin was a member of the troupe, though it is unclear whether she performed at the Earle.

The 49-seat theater operated out of a “spooky L-shaped room with an iron sewer pipe in one corner,” the Detroit Free Press wrote Dec. 26, 1982. “When the play got dull, patrons could amuse themselves by listening to toilets flushing upstairs. The parking lot, unattended at night, had a note pinned to the ticket booth, which read, “Put quarter in slot. Woman watches from window.” At least the coffee was free.

In 1963, The Stables moved to the Wolverine Hotel, occupying a space above the hotel bar that was once part of the Tropic Room, which was still filled with bamboo doodads. There, it became the Masque Theatre before dying out.

On June 2, 1964, the City of Detroit’s Welfare Commission approved renting the entire second floor of the Earle for $600 a month ($6,200 in 2025) for use as an emergency welfare shelter. The move was made because the existing shelter, the former St. Vincent’s Orphanage at 529 McDougall St., was to be torn down as part of the new Medical Center development.

In January 1966, Milner Hotels demolished the hotel’s ballroom, which was located in a separate rear building behind the main structure. It’s unclear why this decision was made, but the best guess is that the ballroom wasn’t getting much use given that the building was serving primarily lower-income tenants, and there was a need for more parking.

This led to a problem, because the fire escape off the rear of the main building was cut off at the fourth floor, where it had originally led onto the roof of the ballroom building. This left many of the hotel’s 140 tenants without an escape route. On Jan. 31, 1966, Detroit Fire Marshal Bernard DeCosta ordered the building evacuated and padlocked because of it.

DeCosta reached an agreement with the hotel’s operators that the building could reopen so long as a fire watchman was stationed on each of the eight floors, 24 hours a day, until the fire escape issue was addressed. Work was to start on fixing it right away.

“This isn’t one of the properties we’re proud of,” A.L. Wilson, vice president of Milner Hotels, told the Free Press for a Feb. 1, 1966, article. “But we do the best job we can.”

In the late 1960s, it was catering to seniors by offering a 10 percent discount, and offering room and board plans. Rent was $12 a week with free parking, or about $111 in 2025.

The Wreck, Wreck, Wreck, Wreck of Earle

By 1971, rooms were going for $18 a week, the equivalent of $142 in 2025. But that same year, the Earle announced that it would be disposing of all baggage and personal articles left behind or held for non-payment of rent unless they were claimed before Aug. 30 of that year. It is assumed that this was because it was getting ready to close up shop and be torn down. A demolition permit was filed March 7, 1972.

While the building was being demolished, crews from Adamo Wrecking Co. dropped a piece of the hotel’s wall on a neighboring structure, the Detroit Free Press reported June 23, 1972. It was one in a series of mishaps by the company that led to the City suspending its license.

It was rare for a contractor’s license to be suspended, Creighton Lederer, commissioner of the City’s Department of Buildings and Safety Engineering, told the paper, but in Adamo’s case, “Things happen too often.”

Lessons learned, Adamo continues to perform demolitions in Detroit and around the country.

Today, the site of the Reid is a parking lot for the surviving Addison Hotel and its ground floor restaurant, Pho Lucky.