Lakewood Lore

Old Stone House

A house full of history

The Old Stone House, now the city's historical museum at Lakewood Park, has withstood the huffing and puffing of 150 years.

It was solidly built by John Honam at Detroit and St. Charles avenues in 1838, during a period when log cabins were giving way to houses made of sandstone, which was plentiful in the area.

Pioneer Honam was a Scotsman and a weaver who bought all the land from Belle Avenue to Warren Road north of Detroit to the lake. The stone used to make his home was dug from a quarry on Cook Avenue.

Honam's daughter, Isabelle, for whom Belle Avenue is named, wed Orville Hotchkiss and remained in the stone house, rearing two daughters and a son.

Orville Hotchkiss was a versatile, venturesome merchant. His enterprises included a tannery, the area's first shoe factory, a cider mill and a sawmill.

The latter, located at Detroit and Belle, cut the oak timbers for the old plank road on Detroit Avenue.

This article appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post October 6, 1988. Reprinted with permission.

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