C. M. Dickson House, 505 Albert Ave. (1909)

C. M. Dickson House, November 2003. Photo Credit: Kevin S. Forsyth

This house in “Queen Anne style with its narrow wood siding, bay windows, and decorative brackets,” has been called “an excellent example of the homes which used to line Grand River Avenue prior to commercial development.” It was built in 1909 about five doors east of the Abbot Road intersection for owners Chalmers M. and Nannie B. Dickson. Dr. Dickson was an oculist who kept his practice on the first floor. Occasionally he also provided his services at the College Hospital. In East Lansing’s original numbering system the house was addressed as 318 Grand River Avenue; after 1920 this became 129 East Grand River.[Landmark Walking Tour. Newman, 1915. LCD (1910), p. 251; (1922), p. 333]

The Dicksons only lived there for a few years. In 1912, the College published a directory of faculty and students that named 318 Grand River as “The Hilands” and listed some nine junior faculty members in residence. Dickson built a two-story brick storefront one door to the east at 320–322 Grand River Avenue, known as the “Dickson block,” and moved into one of its upstairs apartments.[MAC Directory (1912), pp. 2–12. Newman, 1915. LCD (1916), p. 283]

As the Home Economics Division gained momentum and women’s enrollment started a rapid climb that would last for the next several decades, the College was quickly hard-pressed for accommodations. As a stopgap, at least six off-campus houses were leased by the College in 1915 for use as women’s dormitory annexes. The Dickson house became “College Cottage” and housed twenty students, along with house matron Mrs. N. L. Eastman.[MAC Record, 21(1), 21 Sep 1915, p. 6]

College Cottage remained in operation through the end of the 1921–22 school year. In anticipation of further commercial development along Grand River Avenue, the house was picked up and moved in 1922 to 505 Albert Avenue, where it became an eight-unit rooming house named “Ives Apartments” for its proprietors, Melvin and Lenora Ives. At that time the original, open front porch was enclosed.[LCD (1925), p. 767. Sanborn (1926), p. 270]

318 Grand River Avenue circa 1915, when it was the Phylean Society house. As seen here, the house originally had an open front porch, rusticated stone foundation, and banisters atop the protruding bay windows. Photo Credit: The Wolverine (1915), p. 229.

A pamphlet titled “Landmark Walking Tour,” produced by the East Lansing Historic Commission in 1991, claims this house “became the home of the Phylean Society in 1916.” It was instead the years 1913 to 1915; the Dickson house appears as Phylean in the Wolverine yearbook of 1915, along with seven other society houses. For the next school year the Phyleans moved two doors east to 324 Grand River—the Rugg house—while they built a new house at 482 Grand River. They remained there through a merger with the Trimoira Society and installation into Beta Kappa fraternity in 1936. Today renumbered as 729 East Grand River, it remains the site of a fraternity house, built in 1963.[Beal, p. 207. Wolverine (1915), p. 229. MAC Directory (1915), p. 59; (1916), p. 59; (1917), p. 54]