The elegant Georgian Revival Parker house, with its wide double verandas and graceful Ionic portico, has an identical twin, the Chester and Fannie Ruehle Haberkorn House, three houses farther up the channel. Occupying extensive frontage along the channel, the two houses were located on either side of the Grand Pointe Hotel, which opened in 1890, and by 1906 had been expanded to 150 rooms. The hotel was destroyed by fire in 1909, but the five houses built around it in the Grand Pointe Subdivison remain. The subdivision was developed by the Grand Pointe Improvement Company. Organized in 1888, the company acquired the northeastern point of Harsens Island, platted streets, and sold lots.
Aaron A. Parker (b. 1844) was president of the White Star Line, the steamship company that brought Detroiters to the resorts on Harsens Island aboard the big side-wheeler Tashmoo, and manager of the Buffalo and Detroit Transportation Company. Parker also developed Tashmoo Park, an amusement park.