Albert Lockwood House (Sigma Nu Fraternity), 1910

700 Oxford Road

Albert Lockwood House (Sigma Nu Fraternity), 1910

Albert Lockwood came to the University of Michigan School of Music in 1901 as the Head of the Pianoforte Department. When his parents, Charles and Albertine Lockwood, joined him in Ann Arbor he built this remarkable Tudor Revival house to be the center for their musical interests. Although the building is composed of multiple units, the facade presents the appearance of symmetry with front-projecting gables at each end of the main roof.

Adding to the apparent symmetry is the central entry located under an open-gabled portico. All roof gables, including the main and secondary porticos, are flared and covered by terra cotta tile. In keeping with the Tudor style, the exterior of the building is faced with light stucco and dark half-timber beams forming cross and loop patterns. The second story jetty further evokes medieval England.

Every Tuesday at four o'clock, Albert, a gifted painist, held recitals at one of the two grand pianos in the spectacular three-story dining room while students and neighbors listened from the surrounding carved wooden balconies and staircases. During colder weather a cheery fire burned in the impressive fireplace, offsetting the chill of the tall windows. Albert's own master bedroom, and a nursery opposite it, opened onto the dining room by way of the balconies. These are the finest rooms in the house, one with a bay window overlooking the back garden, the other with a handsome fireplace. The interior is rich with floors, balconies, banisters and ceiling beams of black walnut. Shaped plaster, painted black, and carved walnut decorate the rooms and a large iron chandelier hangs from the ceiling.

Charles Lockwood died not long after the house was completed. When his mother Albertine died in 1919, Albert Lockwood sold the house to the Sigma Nu fraternity. Sigma Nu is proud of their house, and recently replaced on the balconies thirteen plaster gargoyles, stolen in a fraternity prank over 30 years ago. As former president Jim Doyle wrote: "700 Oxford was already magnificent when it was built????Today, that magnificence is increased by the knowledge it could never be recreated."