Click above images to enlarge Andrews-Leggett House 722 Farr Street, Commerce vicinity - Oakland County Other Names Field House Property Type house Historic Use DOMESTIC/single dwelling Current Use COMMERCE/TRADE/business Style Greek Revival Narrative Description The Andrews-Leggett House is a five-bay, center-entrance, two-story, gable-roofed, Greek Revival House. The gable at each end is treated as a pediment. Each has a window in its center screened by an unusual triangular louver whose upper edges parallel the slope of the roof on either side. Built in 1837, this part of the structure has an earth-floor basement and eighteen-inch thick, split fieldstone basement walls. The rear wing appears to be very early in its construction and may also date from 1837. It contains the remains of a brick oven. In 1855 the house was enlarged and remodelled. An addition with its gable end to the street was constructed across the center of the house's front facade. A four-foot deep projection from the addition's front contains a semi-octagonal bay window downstairs topped by a small, covered porch upstairs. This part of the house has a simple raking cornice without returns rather than the pedimental treatment of the 1837 portion. Matching Greek Revival porches in the angles on each side between the 1855 addition and front of the 1837 main addition appear to be remnants of a veranda that probably extended entirely across the front prior to the 1855 addition; in them square wood piers support the roofs with matching pilasters at the corners. A two-story, stepped, bay window unit that appears on the 1837 main section may also date from 1855. The entire house is of hewn, timber-frame construction with clapboard covering and an asphalt shingle roof. Statement of Significance In the context of Michigan's pre-Civil War architecture, the Andrews-Leggett House is a highly unusual hybrid of original Greek Revival and later Victorian design exemplifying high quality craftsmanship and containing notable architectural and decorative features, including stencilled wall decorations. The house contains the only thus far documented examples of 1830s and 1840s stencilled wall decorations in Michigan. Amasa Andrews purchased the land upon which the Andrews-Leggett House is constructed in 1837. In 1853, he sold the house to attorney and County Prosecutor Augustus C. Baldwin who sold it to gentleman farmer Samuel M. Leggett in 1855. The Leggetts inhabited the house for seventeen years before selling it. The house's importance in architectural terms stems from two sources. In its embodiment of a New England house type and New England Greek Revival detailing, the house's main section is a particularly clear illustration of the transplanting of architectural forms from New England to southwestern Michigan by early Michigan settlers and draftsmen from New England and upstate New York. In plan and form the main section exemplifies the "New England Large" house form at the height of its popularity in New England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A second area of importance relates to the 1855 enlargement and renovations. The front-facing wing centered on the facade of the original house is unique among Michigan houses of that era, as far as we are aware, as the means of gaining additional space. The panelled archways between the living and dining roofs and the dining room and kitchen are impressive examples of mid-nineteenth-century cabinetry and also unique among Michigan houses of that period as far as we area aware. Period of Significance 1826-1865 Significant Date(s) Built 1837-55 Registry Type(s) 06/12/1987 National Register listed Site ID# P24431