Fairfax Hotel

03 / The story of this place

What was here?

Wholesale butcher William Wreford opened The Utopia on July 6, 1888, a four-story apartment hotel of 24 suites that the Detroit Times later called one of the city's first apartment houses. Its plate-glass dining room faced the street, so passers-by could watch people eat, a novelty back then. Its neighbor was a young Henry Ford, whose workshop noise while building the quadricycle in 1896 reportedly woke guests. Remodeled with 125 rooms, it reopened as the Fairfax on March 15, 1910; in 1915 members of a German sabotage cell came back to their room here with a bomb after failing to attack a Detroit factory. Renamed the St. Denis by 1916 and later a rough stag hotel, it was auctioned off in December 1924 and razed in 1925 for the Michigan Theatre.

• Opened July 6, 1888, as The Utopia
• Henry Ford's workshop next door
• Razed in 1925 for the Michigan Theatre

Former names

The Utopia (1888–1908) · Joe Bedore's Hotel Utopia (1908–1909) · Fairfax Hotel (1909–1916) · St. Denis Hotel (1916–1924)

Architect

Van Leyen & Preston

What’s there now?

The Michigan Theatre, opened August 23, 1926, was built on the site.