Cooper Jacob F. Shultz (also spelled Shiltz, Schultz, Schlitz, Schoeltz, or Schiltz) and his wife Anna probably built these two houses sometime between their purchase of the property in 1842 and 1853, when both houses appear on a city map. However, some features imply an earlier date and we know that the property was sold to Abram B. Guiteau in 1835. He might have built one or both the houses. The house at 809 was built with a massive timber frame, bark-covered log floor joists, beaded exposed corner posts on the interior, with accordion lath and brick nogging in the walls (see #8, #22, and #190), all of which are features found only in very early buildings in the city.

The smaller house at 813 Miller—a mere 823 square feet—is assumed to be the earlier of the two buildings. It served as the Shultz’s first home and is a 1½-story side-gabled house with a central door flanked by two long, narrow windows. These probably date to the 1880s. The shed roof dormer and portico are not original. By 1860, the house belonged to Jacob’s brother John Shultz. It was occupied later by Jacob and Anna’s son Charles Shultz and his wife Louisa.

The house at 809 Miller is 1½ stories with the long side of the house facing the road and two doorways that allowed for separate entrances into the formal and informal parlors—very unusual for Ann Arbor. It is almost 1,300 square feet. It has eyebrow windows under the eaves and very simple gable returns on the sides. The full-width porch is probably from the 1860s. The Shultz family owned the houses until the late 1890s. In 2008, the Historic District Commission awarded Jeffrey Lamb and Leyla Lau-Lamb a Preservation Award for their maintenance of this historic property.

809 was a former IHP

Return to Miller Road/Water Hill/Sunset neighborhood from Historic Ann Arbor: An Architectural Guide