Click above images to enlarge Botsford-Graser House 24105Locust Drive, Farmington Hills - Oakland County Other Names The Lone Ranger's House Orville Botsford (Lone Ranger) House-Local Property Type frame house Historic Use DOMESTIC/single dwelling Current Use DOMESTIC/hotel Style Colonial Revival Greek Revival Significant Person Earle W. Graser Narrative Description The Botsford-Graser House is a two-story, clapboard Colonial Revival that evolved from a Greek Revival house located on the boundary between Farmington and Farmington Hills. The house still retains vestiges of the Greek Revival period noticeable on the cornice and cornice returns of the original portion of the structure. Commonly known as The Lone Ranger's House, the major additions and modifications date to c. 1920, a period after Botsford's ownership and prior to Earle W. Graser. Adjoining the 1860 segment is a two-story enclosed porch representing the remains of a full-facade, full-height pediment portico of the original 1860 entrance. The focus of the west side of the house is an Arts and Crafts-inspired stone gable wall chimney constructed by Earle W. Graser. The south side entrance (c. 1930), is situated under a pedimented wooden portico. This anterior facade has double-hung, six-over-six-pane, sash windows under a side gable roof that constitutes a major addition to the house over a cement block basement. Moving eastward on this facade, an ornamental pilaster strip signifies the beginning of the 1860 segment of the house located beneath a side gabled roof with cornice returns and punctuated by a quartet of double-hung sash windows. Standing on a secluded, slightly larger than two acre wooded lot at the west end of Farmington, the Botsford-Graser House is a two story Greek/Colonial Revival house with clapboard exterior. Visually the building today consists of two sections that together for a rectangular footprint. An approximately twenty two (north/south) by fourteen (east/west) foot section at the house's east end fronts on the private lane along the east edge of the property that provides access from Shiawassee Street to the south. The roof ridge of this gable roof section having ground dimensions of about thirty three feet (east/west) by twenty two feet (north/south). Its roof ridge runs east/west, at a right angle to the eastern section. A deep two story, gable front sunporch extends across nearly the full length of the front, and a small two story wing projects to the north from the house's western section. Statement of Significance While the house does not retain much integrity as an 1860 Greek Revival structure, it has historical integrity from the Colonial Revival period c. 1930, and likely looks much as it did at the time Earle W. Graser lived in it. The property, therefore, maintains architectural integrity as a Colonial Revival house that evolved from a Greek Revival dwelling that achieved its historical significance from the occupancy of Earle W. Graser, the Lone Ranger of national radio fame. Earl W. Graser, an attorney and graduate of Wayne State University, lived in the house from c. 1939 until his death on April 8, 1941. He was the radio voice of George W. Tremble's The Lone Ranger on station WXYZ in Detroit, that premiered on January 30, 1933. The show aired three times a night, three times weekly on 150 stations on "the Mutual Network and on scores of independent radio stations," according to the New York Times. Earle W. Graser became the Lone Ranger on April 16, 1933, following very short stints by two other actors. This was the home during the last two years of his life of Earle W. Graser, the radio voice for eight years of the Lone Ranger. Graser made his debut as the Lone Ranger on April 16, 1933, three months after the show's debut on Detroit radio station WXYZ (several others had brief stints before him), and continued in the role until his death in a car accident on April 8, 1941. Earle Graser lived with his parents until he married and, following his marriage in October 1935, occupied an apartment in Detroit until the Grasers acquired this property; thus the Farmington Hills house they bought and occupied from about 1939 onward was the couples only home of their own. The house as it exists today reflects the appearance it acquired as a result of renovations carried out during the time the Grasers lived there. Period of Significance 1931-1945 Significant Date(s) 1860, 1940, 04/08/1941 Registry Type(s) 03/15/2002 National Register listed 02/29/1996 State Register listed Site ID# P696