Michigan Avenue begins the year of 1892 when then mayor of the newly consolidated Saginaw City, Gilbert Montague Stark and his wife Helen Louise Stark née Little constructed this house for them and their three children, Gilbert, Helen, and Pamela. Stark’s first son, Gilbert, traveled at the young age of 20 to the nations of Japan, China, Mongolia, and India where he died an untimely death. His fat
her compiled his letters detailing his travels in the Far East in a book entitled The Letters of Gilbert Little Stark. Helen Stark married Harry Smith of Grosse Point where she raised four children of her own. Pamela Stark, the youngest of the three, married George M. Hanna and Company, a Great Lakes shipping company. Humphrey later became Secretary of the Treasury during Eisenhower’s first term as president. The Humphrey’s three children grew up to raise horses, one of which went on to win the Breeder’s Cup. Another son became a well-known philanthropist in Cleveland. In the 1940s, the Max R. Treus bought 1027 N. Michigan where they raised their own family. Treu was in the business of brewing. The Treus cared well for the house and upkept it until they eventually sold it in 1977. The house was then bought by the Ted Rappsons who operated the house as a group home along with its neighbor, 1019 N. Michigan. The Rappsons took loving care of the house despite a fire which burnt down the rear carriage house. The house changed hands twice more and in 2004 was covered and destroyed, for all intents and purposes, by vinyl and had its fenestration severely altered. The tower was torn down and the porches ripped off, along with all of the landscaping. This all happened 8 months prior to a historical declaration. Fortunately for the city, the house at 1019 N. Michigan, the Willis T. Knowlton house, was sparred the same fate. The Gilbert M. Stark house stands as a testament to the history of Saginaw and its global influence.
