Johnson–Stoddard House, 1107 W. Grand River (1926)

Johnson-H.J. Stoddard House, February 1992. Photo Credit: Kevin S. Forsyth.

This elaborate Tudor-style house with its thatch-like shingled roof seems quite out of place along busy Grand River Avenue. It was built for T. Ray Johnson, an automotive sales engineer, and his wife Alice. The Johnsons and their six children seem to have lived here for only a short period circa 1930–1931.

Following several years of rental occupancy, in 1940 the house was bought by Howard James and Jennie (Creer) Stoddard. H. J. Stoddard (1901–1971) is noted today for having founded, on the last day of 1940, the Michigan National Bank as a merger of six banks in Battle Creek, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Marshall, Port Huron, and Saginaw.

The Stoddards also did not remain in this house for very long—in 1946 they moved to a new-built home in Glen Cairn. Toward the end of his life Stoddard donated land and funds to the Church of Latter-Day Saints for a chapel and student housing complex on Hagadorn Road, which were dedicated in 1975 and are known as the Stoddard Student Living Center. Stoddard Avenue is also believed by this author to be named for him.