This is likely Wallace Frost’s best-known house, and one of the best-known houses in Birmingham: for years the home of Marshall Fredericks, the sculptor whose work stands in public places across Michigan and beyond. In the early 2000s we renovated it extensively, with one governing rule: modern design and modern comfort had to enter without disturbing what Frost had made.
The exterior additions cannot be picked out from the original. Each detail was matched to Frost’s architecture in material and workmanship, so the new walls, openings, and rooflines read as part of the 1920s house.
Inside, the best of the original was kept and brought forward: the magnificent living room, the dining room, the study. Around them, the kitchen and the primary bath were remade with the finest of current design and craftsmanship, so the house works for the way its owners live now.
Renovation architecture by Mark Johnson. Original house by Wallace Frost.
Next
Asian Garden →
On completion, the architect said it was the most finely executed house he had designed to date.
