511 Beaubien Boulevard
Alexander Chapoton House, Rooming House, Muccioli Studio Gallery
I don’t often document buildings downtown; however, I’ve always admired this one. The sun was hitting it perfectly one day while I was heading to the Rivertown Market Meijer, so I figured I might as well photograph it. The building traces its origins back to one person: Alexander Chapoton.
The Chapoton family’s roots in Detroit go almost as far back as possible for a white man—Dr. Jean Baptist Chapoton arrived in Detroit as a surgeon for Fort Pontchartrain in the early 1700s.
Alexander Chapoton Sr. was born in 1818 in Detroit. He inherited a masonry business from his father, Eustache Augustus Chapoton, and built many iconic structures in Detroit’s early years. He had numerous children, but I found the most about Alexander Chapoton Jr., born in Detroit on October 13, 1839. Alexander Jr. studied at Notre Dame and would go into the family business of masonry, building, and architecture.
According to Alexander Jr.’s obituary, the Chapoton firm was responsible for building the Old Russell House, Board of Trade, Campau Building, Newberry Building, Moran Block, Westminster Church, First Congregational Church, St. Mary’s Church, St. Vincent’s Orphan Asylum, St. Mary’s Hospital, and St. Joseph Retreat at Dearborn during his time in Detroit. Additionally, he was involved in the early years of Detroit’s banking sector, helping found the Peninsular Savings Bank, which he was president of in the early years, and various other groups and organizations in a burgeoning Detroit.
Like many cities, Detroit depended on farming in its early years. Ribbon farms were set up, allowing landowners access to the water for transporting crops, travel, and irrigation. According to the Detroit Historical Society, this also made plowing easier, as you had to make fewer turns, which wasn’t as easy with more primitive farming technology. Many of the roads that flow away from the Detroit River are named after those ribbon farms, including Beaubian Street, on which this structure is perched.
Prior to the construction of this building, there was a smaller dwelling on site. In 1860, Dr. Pomeroy moved his residence and practice to that older structure, and in 1869, Thomas Edward Wall resided there and had his funeral in the home after he passed at 59.
The current structure, pictured here, was built in the 1870s. I haven’t been able to pinpoint an exact date, but other researchers believe this is when it was likely built, too. It was built as a rooming house to accommodate Detroit’s growing population.
According to the Historic Designation Advisory Board’s research in the 1980s, “Beaubien Street was part of the old downtown residential area extending northward from Jefferson Avenue.” Because downtown land was so valuable, rooming houses like this were popular because they allowed for cheaper rent for more people to be squashed into the meat grinder that was Detroit’s Industrial Revolution.
On April 7, 1882, the structure was damaged by a small fire. The Detroit Free Press reported that the blaze started in a barn on the property and caused Alex Chapoton about $25 in damage.
In 1886, Alexander Chapoton filed a permit worth $1,800 to alter the brick dwelling at No. 71 Beaubien Street. In 2024, that would be more than $60,000 in renovations.
Considering this was a rooming house, the newspaper didn’t mention the property other than people looking for work and items for sale. In 1887, two coal stoves were available, and renters were looking for jobs as house cleaners and cooks. In 1893, a large white St. Bernard Dog with black eyes was lost, and there was a reward if it was returned to 71 Beaubien, pictured here.
On May 2, 1893, Alexander Chapoton Sr. died. The second sentence of his obituary read, “He was one of the oldest and best-known residents of the city and lived to see it grow from a village to its present proportions.” In addition to his career in Detroit, he was one of three commissioners who supervised the erection of Michigan’s State Capitol. He was a “hater of everything which was wrong” and left four children, including his namesake. His funeral was at Saints Peter and Paul Jesuit Church.
On September 22, 1906, Alexander Chapoton Jr. died from paralysis. He was crossing Jefferson near Brush when he was struck with the sickness, and his brother, Dr. E. A. Chapoton, tended to his health until he passed. Prior to his death, he had onboarded his son to run the family business. His funeral was at Saints Peter and Paul Jesuit Church, less than a quarter mile from the structure pictured here (where the Chapoton family donated holy water fonts), and he was buried at Mt. Elliott Cemetery. His wife, Marion (Peltier) Chapoton, died on April 19, 1934.
In researching this piece, the Chapoton name is often mentioned in the same breath as other Detroit and Michigan notables, like the Buhl, Russel, Newberry, Farnsworth, and Bagley families.
In 1912, W. H. Harrison, a resident of 71 Beaubien Street, was choked and robbed by five men on the doorstep of this structure. The thieves took $70 from Harrison.
After that, this structure wasn’t mentioned much. According to the Historic Designation Advisory Board’s research in the 1980s, “These urban house types, which were necessitated by the high land values adjacent to downtown and the riverfront, were soon eclipsed in popularity by the detached single- or two-family dwelling that has dominated residential construction in Detroit down to the present.” Basically, Detroit expanded and grew, and the need for rooming houses such as this one grew small. Still, the Alexander Chapoton House chugged along operating as such.
In the 1960s, most of this section of Beabuen Street was cleared for renewal, and in 1976, Beaubien Street was widened, which removed even more of the historic buildings that once lined the thoroughfare. Somehow, the Alexander Chapoton House survived.
In 1979, the structure was purchased by the Muccioli family, led by artist Anna Muccioli. The family, alongside friends, family, and community members, spent months fixing the structure with plans to transform it into an art gallery. According to an interview with Muccioli in the Detroit Free Press, “The second floor hallway had six layers of carpets. The wallpaper was 15 layers deep…When the Mucciolis finally reached the wall beneath the paper, they discovered a pencil-written scrawl: ‘Fred Hill, Paperhanger, Sept. 17, 1888.’”
Prior to moving into the Alexander Chapoton House, the Muccioli Studio Gallery was located at 85 Kercheval in Grosse Pointe Farms.
In the ensuing decades, the Muccioli Studio Gallery in the Alexander Chapoton House saw a constant stream of art shows. Don Winston, Anna Muccioli, Fran Nicholson, Andrel Ritter, Tison, Thelma Abel, Alfred Maxwell, Ljubo Biro, Freda Kroll, and numerous others exhibited work there.
In August 1981, Anna Muccioli painted the mural on the structure’s south side, which still exists today. Titled ‘Oriental,’ she told the Detroit Free Press that the colored shapes represented the Oriental influence on her art. Today, it’s mostly covered by an advertisement billboard.
A significant aspect of the Muccioli’s ownership of the structure was a dedication to historic preservation. She worked to have the building added to the National Register of Historic Places (1980), become a Michigan State Historic Site (1980), and be added as a City of Detroit Historic District (1986).
In 1987, the Detroit People Mover was completed, and the landscape of Beaubien Avenue changed once more.
By the late 1980s, a store called Little Things had opened, selling women’s accessories like jewelry and handbags. As time went on, art shows appeared in the paper less often, and advertisements for stores like this one became more common. The gallery was still a staple of the structure; however, as the Mucciolis aged and Detroit changed, it wasn’t as happening a place as it may have once been. Or, it simply didn’t get as much coverage.
In 1991, the Detroit Grand Prix was in its third year, and Beaubien Street was closed to make way for the race. Anna Muccioli planned to watch from the family’s building and hand out spaghetti to the volunteers who made the race happen.
On October 20, 2008, Anna Maria Muccioli died at 86. She was a CCS graduate and spent her life working on art in the Detroit area. Her husband, Joseph, was a Ford engineer. In 1968, at a Ford Shareholder’s meeting, she questioned Henry Ford II about how large the Mustang had gotten in recent years. The New York Times quoted her years later, “I have a ’65 Mustang and don't like what's happening. They are blowing that one up. Why can't you just leave a sports car small?” Within a few years, the Mustang had changed dramatically, and the Ford Mustang II was born. Many affectionately called Anna the "Godmother of the Mustang."
Today, the Alexander Chapoton House is still owned by the Muccioli family through an LLC. The Muccioli Studio Gallery is still inside, and there are numerous businesses alongside it. The structure is entirely surrounded by a paid parking lot run by an LLC out of Grosse Pointe.
While researching the more modern history of this structure, I couldn’t help but compare the art scene of downtown Detroit in the 1980s and 1990s to today. You continued to see artists and people who support them purchase structures for artistic purposes into the 2010s, mainly in Detroit’s neighborhoods. That said, the housing and commercial market has gotten so inflated in the past five years that it’s almost impossible for an artist who isn’t bankrolled by lineage or a major company to afford a house, let alone a commercial space to house a gallery like Anna Muccioli was able to.
Does this mean Detroit is back, or it just isn’t cool anymore?
Either way, I can’t help but be happy that this structure still stands and operates as an art gallery, though not at the scale it once did. Hopefully, eventually, we’ll see more development on the land around the Alexander Chapoton House.
