Historic Home Tour

Marshall Michigan

Marsha & Tom Franke Home
410 North Marshall - Oak HIll

--blurb

Back again this year by popular demand is the stately Italianate. Oak Hill, one of Marshall’s most popular Home Tour attractions. Built in 1858 by Chauncey Brewer, a wealthy Marshall farmer, merchant and owner of a general store and dry good business, and his wife, Emily. The home remained in the Brewer family until 1968. The Frank’s purchased “Oak Hill” in 1979 and have done much to restore the home to its former elegance. It is listed in the historic American Buildings Survey and the State Register of Historic Sites. The Frankes feel they are the “caretakers” of many of the original Brewer antiques such as the dining room table and sideboard, teacart, the large bookcase in the front hall and most of its books, a Chickering piano, and a variety of tins and boxes in the pantry. The Frankes have added numerous collections such as Victorian Figural silver plate pieces and art nouveau pieces by WMF and Kayserzin, Roycroft items, publications and Toby mugs.

Oak Hill features several outbuilding —a summer laundry converted into an English pub, a farrowing barn, corn-crib, ‘pig-slops,’ cookhouse and the original four-holer outhouse (now a garden shed), One will also notice the original carriage shed (now a carport) and the beautiful playhouse, which entices the 22 Franke grandchildren.

Enjoy a stroll through the house, noting the redecorated kitchen and then savor the gardens, extensive grounds and areas to just sit and take it all in.