19304 Denby

Year Built: ?
Sq Ft: 1,111+
Bedrooms: 3
Bathrooms: 1.5
Basement
Lot Size: .58 acres

This beautiful farmhouse is another one on our mystery list. Public record shows this home was built in 1819 but I have a hunch that the numbers may have been transposed, and the home was really built in 1918. This home is in the Liberty Heights Subdivision, which was approved in…you guessed it, 1918. The street name at the time was Foch Ave.

According to the current owner, the original staircase still exists and the original 1×3 yellow pine floor has been refinished.

According to a 1958 ad in the Redford Observer, Ross B. Northrup & Son (Funeral Directors) list upcoming services for a Mr. Frank N. Hickey Sr., who lived at that address. His wife Emma (Thiel) is also listed at this address on her death certificate in 1946. It states that she was a member of the community for 27 years (possibly at that same address?) Both Emma and Frank Hickey Sr. are listed on the 1940 Census. 

We requested records from Wayne County so we could document ownership of the property. The earliest document we obtained was from 1960, with a record of sale from the Salisbury family to the Scheurer family. Over the next few years the property changed hands quite a few times; 1961 – the Salisbury family to the Cutright family (the Scheurer family likely defaulted on the previous sale), then immediately to the Siepierski family, foreclosed on in 1962, and finally sold to the Brancart family in 1963, where it remained until the current owner purchased it in 1987.