Building Description Eddystone Hotel, Detroit Michigan

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The Eddystone Hotel is a thirteen story steel frame, brick, limestone, and terra-cotta-clad building located at the northwest corner of Park Avenue and Sproat Street, six blocks north of Grand Circus Park. The hotel's overall footprint is rectangular, measuring sixty-two feet on Park and one hundred and five feet on Sproat. The Eddystone is thirteen stories in height. The building's Italian Renaissance-inspired exterior treatment is modeled after urban palazzos, with a two-story base finished in large "blocks" of limestone and displaying tall arched openings, a more plain central section above the base, and a highly finished top or attic crowned by an elaborate entablature and cornice.

The building sits opposite the former Park Avenue Hotel, located on the southwest corner of Park and Sproat. The two former hotels are vacant and are among the few remaining structures that have survived the decline of the surrounding neighborhood. The two hotels are located just two blocks east of the newly designated Cass Park Historic District and one block west of Woodward Avenue, Detroit's primary thoroughfare.

Above the limestone-clad base, the primary facade material on the street-facing east and south elevations is yellow brick. The yellow brick extends a few feet around the corners onto both the north and west elevations. The remainder of the north and west elevations are finished in common buff-colored brick. The east and south elevations, and the first bay of the west elevation, are similar in composition with smooth limestone ashlar on the first and second floors forming the building's base and decorative terra cotta window treatments on the third, fourth and twelfth floors. A denticulated cornice serving as a belt course separates the second and third floors. The building is capped with a decorative terra cotta cornice. The windows from the second to the thirteenth floor are one/one double-hung wood-frame windows.

The Eddystone exhibits the vast expanse of plain wall surfaces of a tall building relieved with decorative Italian Renaissance-inspired detailing. The south elevation facing Sproat is symmetrical and seven bays in width, the five center bays each containing paired windows and the end bays each a single window in the third to thirteenth stories. The windows in the third story are framed by terra-cotta trim - balustraded balconets below the window bays, window surrounds, and spandrel panels above the window bays, each displaying an arch form containing a large rondel above each window, that are topped with a dentiled cornice beneath the fourth-story windows. The square-head windows of the fourth floor are outlined in terra cotta with raised outer edges. Those in the central-height part of the facade between the fifth and eleventh floors are set into the brick facade with no trim save plain slab limestone sills. The windows of the twelfth floor display terra-cotta surrounds echoing the design of those in the third story with balustraded balconets but of more simple design, with rosettes in the frieze in place of the arches. A terra-cotta beltcourse separates the eleventh and twelfth floors. The building is crowned with a tall decorative terra-cotta entablature and cornice, the entablature with a chevron-like band below a projecting arcade with detailed corbels supporting the bases of the arches, and a projecting cornice with a decorative fringe. This decorative detailing continues along the east elevation and the first bay of the west elevation.

The hotel entrance is located in the south elevation facing Sproat Street. The inner bays of the smooth ashlar first floor contain five large arched openings with the lobby entrance doorway in the center arch flanked by two storefront windows. The two end bays of the first floor have square-head storefront windows. All first and second-floor windows have been boarded up. The simple entrance retains remnants of an aluminum canopy. Two flagpoles extend from carved stone shields above either side of the entrance. Each shield displays an emblem of a wrapped torch.

The east elevation is composed of five bays, containing sets of paired double-hung windows, from the second to the thirteenth floors. The center three bays of the first floor contain arched windows and the end bays contain storefront entrances. The entrance closer to the corner of Park and Sproat contains a setback aluminum-framed doorway with remnants of an aluminum canopy. Two flagpoles extending from shield-patterned supports identical to the supports on the south elevation rise between the arches.

The north elevation is plain with no decorative detailing and with one casement stairway window opening per floor. The west elevation contains five bays, four containing sets of paired windows and one that contains one window and continues the decorative detailing of the south elevation. The words HOTEL EDDYSTONE are painted at the top of the north and west elevations. The flat roof is covered in asphalt and has a small one-story brick penthouse, with industrial windows, that houses the elevator machinery.

The main entrance to the hotel from Sproat is through a small vestibule that leads to the main lobby in the center of the building, where the hotel elevators and stairwells to the upper floors are located. Commercial space is located on both sides of the lobby with frontage along both Sproat and Park. The original floor plan provided for five stores on the first floor, but that space was later altered into two larger spaces, one on either side of the lobby entrance. The Eddystone has been vacant for many years and the interior has suffered extensive damage from exposure to weather and vandalism. The first floor had been remodeled at one time but a few damaged remnants of the original detailing remain, including some paneling in the lobby and decorative support columns throughout the first floor.

The upper floors still retain their original floor plans with the guest rooms located on the east, south and west sides of the floor and the elevators, main hallway and stairwells located on the north end of the floor. The rooms have paneling with simple decorative plaster detailing and white tiled bathrooms. The interior finishes have deteriorated from neglect and exposure; the original fixtures have been removed by scavengers.