Reuben and Pauline Widenmann Kempf House/Henry DeWitt Bennett House
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Kempf House Museum (Reuben and Pauline Widenmann Kempf House/Henry DeWitt Bennett House)
1853. 312 S. Division St.
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(Photograph by Balthazar Korab)
The diminutive one-and-a-half-story wood temple-form house is an embodiment of the simplicity of the Greek Revival style. The four sturdy rectangular piers are a distillation of the supremely sophisticated Doric column; three large, cast-iron grilles with an anthemion motif pose as metopes in the frieze but actually screen the windows of the upper story, which is tucked beneath the gable roof. Henry DeWitt Bennett, who was secretary and steward of the University of Michigan from 1869 to 1883, built the house. It was purchased in 1890 by Reuben H. and Pauline Widenmann Kempf, two classically trained music instructors. Reuben Kempf (1859–1945) organized and directed concert series to attract talented artists to the university; his wife, Pauline Widenmann Kempf (1860–1953), taught voice.
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Location: Ann Arbor, MichiganRegional Overviews:Styles:Materials:
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Citation
Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "Kempf House Museum (Reuben and Pauline Widenmann Kempf House/Henry DeWitt Bennett House)", [Ann Arbor, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MI-01-WA3.
Print Source
Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 140-140.
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