12/11/2025
Going live next week! Send me a message for a tour before it hits the market.
One of Detroit’s oldest surviving brick homes is undergoing a gut renovation and will soon be for sale.
The three-story Federal-style house on Labrosse Street in Corktown dates to the 1850s, and in many ways encapsulates the history of immigration in Detroit. It was built before the Civil War by an Ireland-born mason named William Murphy and by the time of the Great Depression that began in 1929 it was lived in by Mexican immigrants, one of whom is believed to be among the faces in Diego Rivera’s famed mural at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Sitting just blocks from the revitalized Michigan Central Station and the flood of other development activity that’s overtaken the Corktown neighborhood, the house is now ready to be part of a new chapter of Detroit history.
John Biggar and Brian Mooney, partners at Detroit-based Integrity Building Group, bought the house in 2021. The two have undertaken an extensive renovation, albeit one that leaves in place numerous original features, including the brick, some wood beams and a mahogany stairway railing.
With an expected asking price around $695,000, would-be buyers needn’t worry about feeling like they’re living in a 165-year-old house.
Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/it-hits-market/165-year-old-corktown-house-going-sale?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own
