The Colin Fox House – 627 W Canfield St, Detroit, MI 48201

Built in 1874 and one of the oldest standing homes on the south side of the West Canfield Historic District, the Colin Fox House located at 627 W Canfield St, Detroit, MI 48201, is one of the district’s most visually significant Carpenter Gothic structures. 

First commissioned for Colin Fox (Division Superintendent of the Western Telegraph and one of the most prolific communications professionals of the age), the 627 W Canfield St property set a precedent for the kind of property sought after by Detroit’s upwardly mobile residents in its earliest days. 

From there, in 1880, the Colin Fox home was purchased by Alexander McVittie, President of the Detroit Ship Building Company and a major figure in the state of Michigan’s marine industry, who occupied the property up until his death in 1909.

The home served as a main gathering place for McVittie’s family, including his granddaughter, Mrs. Stanley S. Kresge, who recalled fond memories of her Sunday visits to the Fox house as a child. 

Following McVittie’s passing, the 627 West Canfield residence was occupied by Kenneth M. Anderson, Alexander McVittie’s son-in-law and the Treasurer and Manager of the Kenneth M. Anderson Company, who occupied the property until 1915, continuing its legacy as a home base for Detroit’s early 20th-century business elite.

Predating much of the surrounding Victorian development in the West Canfield Historic District, the Colin Fox house at 627 West Canfield stands as a model of the area’s transition from wide open farmland to one of Detroit’s most distinguished suburbs. 

Nearly a century after its construction, the home entered an entirely new era when Detroit attorney Henry G. Groehn and his family rehabilitated the property in 1969, ensuring they preserved its original architectural integrity in the process.

As for the home’s later occupancy, from the late 1960s all the way up until the early 2000s it belonged to Beulah Groehn Croxford, founder of the Canfield West–Wayne Preservation Association, a groundbreaking organization dedicated to protecting, restoring, and preserving West Canfield District’s historic homes.

Today, the Colin Fox House stands as a rare and perfectly maintained example of Carpenter Gothic architecture within one of Detroit’s most sophisticated boulevards – a distinguished home that has passed through the hands of everyone from telegraph executives to shipbuilders, business leaders, preservationists, and visionaries.