Dearborn's oldest building undergoes final stage of restoration, renovation into museum

Dearborn's oldest original building, dating to 1833, is fully retrofitted into a local historical museum after more than two years of volunteer and fundraising efforts.

The Commandant's Quarters is one of four remaining buildings from the area's historic Detroit Arsenal of Dearbornville, a compound of 11 buildings that supplied Northern forces during the Civil War.

Matthew Graff, assistant curator at the Commandant's Quarters, said the main renovations began in 2020, to convert all of the rooms into a rotating museum that tells the story of Dearborn, from Native American settlements to current mayor Abdullah Hammoud, the city's first Muslim mayor.

The beauty of the renovated museum is that it has something for everyone, Graff said.

"It's not just an old house that you come to see once and then there's no need to visit ever again," he said. "There's a lot of opportunity for repeat visits."

The full renovation project, made possible through a $10,000 matching grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services in 2022, totaled nearly $40,000 and includes updated electrical wiring, fresh paint, new display cases, labels and restored windows.

The parlor room is the only room within the building that will remain a period-accurate reflection of the mid-1800s.

All of the rooms within the Commandant's Quarters got a fresh coat of paint, transforming the walls from dreary shades of browns and nudes to vibrant green and red tones.

"A lot of the time when people think of the past, and they think everything in the early 1800s is dirt, dark, gray and grimy," Graff said, "but no, they had colors and they painted everything vibrant(ly) — especially because, without electrical lighting, the rooms would have been very dark, so a way to brighten the room is bright colors."

Mannequins in various period-clothing are found in each of the museum's rooms, although the odds of seeing the same outfit twice is rare as Graff says the museum archive has at least 900 articles of clothing.

Brian and Janet Spicer, of West Sussex, England, stumbled across the Commandant Quarter's open door while visiting the area for their son's graduation from Wayne State University on Wednesday.

"We're really excited to learn all about the history of the area from Henry Ford to everything else we don't know about," Janet Spicer said about the couple's plan to tour the area's museums.

Graff said the Spicers' experience is a prime example of the building's potential for growth. The Dearborn Historical Museum came under city control in 2012 after nearing bankruptcy and entered a transitional era with the help of dedicated volunteers.

One of the coolest finds of the remodel was a women's shoe found between the wooden slats of the attic roof.

Chief Museum Curator Jack Tate said a common tradition in 18th-century construction was to leave a shoe within the walls of the structure for good luck, and according to the fable, the shoe can never be removed, to ensure the future safety of the building.

Aside from the Commandant's Quarters, visitors can tour two of the three other remaining properties of the Detroit Arsenal owned by the Historical Museum:

• The McFadden-Ross House, at 915 South Brady St., was constructed in 1839 and used as the Detroit Arsenal Powder Magazine. The building was sold in 1882 and converted into a farmhouse. The house's last inhabitant donated the structure to the city in 1950 and opened as a museum in 1956.

• The Gardner House was originally built in 1831 near the corner of Asbuy Park and Warren Avenue in Detroit and was moved to the Dearborn Historical Museum in 1996. The house was renovated by Henry Ford in 1929 to appear as it had during his childhood and was one of the first buildings in Greenfield Village.

The Commandant's Quarters, at 21950 Michigan Ave., is available for free tours on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 2-6 p.m. The main museum office is located at 915 Brady St.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Dearborn Commandant's Quarters restored, renovated to become museum