Full-service / Detroit
Biddle House
Closed – archive entry · 1851–1893 · demolished 1917
Michigan's largest hotel when it opened in 1851 at Jefferson Avenue and Randolph Street; it closed in the early 1890s and was gone by 1917.
Crisco 1492 · Public domain
Quick facts
- Rooms
- 151
- Opened
- 1851
03 / The story of this place
What was here?
A company led by Luther Beecher built the Biddle House on the site of Governor William Hull's old house and the fire-destroyed American (Wales) Hotel, and it opened on June 7, 1851, as the largest hotel in Michigan. The opening ad promised 151 bedrooms and parlors, gas lighting and new furniture. In 1860 the Young Men's Hall was added at the east end, a stage for Mark Twain, Horace Greeley and Adelina Patti, and General Ulysses S. Grant was welcomed at the hotel on August 12, 1865. After business moved uptown it closed in the early 1890s, and in 1898 William E. Metzger opened the country's first car dealership in one of its storefronts. Fires in 1909 and 1914 badly damaged the building, and the last of it came down in early 1917 for an Albert Kahn building for A. Krolik & Co.
- Michigan's largest hotel in 1851
- Grant welcomed here, August 12, 1865
- America's first car dealership (1898)
- Architect
- A.E. Wales
Hotels nearby
Back to hotels ↗
Smart & simple / Downtown · Jefferson Avenue / Millender Center (next to the RenCen)
Courtyard by Marriott Detroit Downtown
Full-service / Downtown · Riverfront / Renaissance Center
Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center
Extended stay / Downtown · Cadillac Square / Campus Martius
Kasa Cadillac Square Detroit
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