HUTTON-TURNBULL-MULVEY
315 West Jefferson Street

1873-1900 Italianate/ Colonial Revival

Prominent citizens have long selected Jefferson Street as the place to build their showcase homes. None show this more then the Hutton-Turnbull-Mulvey house.

In 1873 Caleb Hutton built his brick home on a large corner parcel bounded by West Jefferson, Adams, and West Scott Streets. The block across the street, along the river, was originally planned for a Public Square. It is doubtful this ever came to much except on paper. Built on high ground in an Italianate Villa style, his home was a highly visible addition to the avenue. Hutton, born in New York about 1806, was living in retirement in the home with his much younger wife Martha (born about 1834) and step-daughter Inez (born about 1874). During the 1890’s the Hutton’s apparently moved out of the home and rented it to Edward and Emma Turnbull.  

Edward A. Turnbull was born in Alnwick, Northumberland, England on Aug 3, 1856. He was educated in a private school and then spent three years working in London for a tea importing house. Still at a young age, he left London and went to South Africa for some time. In 1879, at 23 years old, he came to America. He was a manager with Western Union Telegraph Company in New York. A few years later he moved to Cleveland and then to Grindstone City, Michigan which is located at the very tip of the Michigan “Thumb”

While in Grindstone City he met and married Emma Tinkham of Grand Ledge. The Tinkham’s were an old family in Grand Ledge, and the Tinkham sisters married well. Emma had three sisters. Ella Tinkham married Lewis Campbell, and would live across the street. Clara Tinkham married Fred Chappell and they lived on Scott Street.The brothers-in-law operated Campbell and Chappell Drug Store at the corner of Jefferson and Bridge. Zelia Tinkham married Raymond Hull and moved to St. Johns.

In 1889 the Turnbull’s came to Grand Ledge. Edward started in the grocery business. Edward soon made a name for himself as a business man and was asked to help with the struggling Grand Ledge Chair Company. By 1893 he had purchased the company from the founders. He was also president of the Grand Ledge Clay Products Company, vice-president of the Loan and Deposit Bank, a director of the Merchants National Bank of Detroit and a director and stockholder in many Grand Rapids firms. He was a delegate to the Michigan Constitutional Convention of 1907-8 from Eaton County.

In 1899 it was announced that the Turnbull’s had purchased the Hutton home. The Grand Ledge Independent noted the Turnbull’s had “definitely decide to make Grand Ledge their permanent, abiding place, and thereby become more fully identified with all the interest of the town and its welfare” Furthermore, the newspaper noted it “also settles the annoying rumors that spring up occasionally that the Chair Company is to be located elsewhere.” The house “is to be changed to the popular colonial style throughout with a new roof, several gables, dormer windows, a ten-foot porch all around, and innumerable other improvement outside and in that will make it strictly modern and up-to-date”

The Turnbull’s were indeed making changes. Their architect would change and expand the two story Italianate Villa into a huge three story Colonial Revival home. The architect did his job well, today it is hard to recognize the Italianate Villa tucked in under the Colonial Revival additions. In December it was noted “mild weather has been favorable for the radical changed made in the structure, and when all is finished the place will be a decided ornament to the city.” Indeed when it was completed it was the largest residence in town; dwarfing even its most grand neighbors.

The original home was left in place at the front. Behind, the new addition was more then three times as big. The shallow hipped roof was replaced with a gabled third floor ballroom. The original spiral front stairs remained, but a new doorway at the top of the stairs accessed the gallery over the new front porch. Some of the window headers from the back of the old home were reused in the addition. By 1900 work was progressing on the inside with M. Gilliam doing the plaster and H.R. Streeter doing the plumbing. The Carriage House was also nearing completion.

The Turnbull's fortune grew and in 1910, they built a second home in Grosse Point Farms on Lake Shore Road. They then began to travel between the homes. While they were away, William Pye the gardener for the Chair Company and for the home, would care for the residence. He had a set of rooms in the upstairs of the Carriage House. In 1916 E.A. Turnbull died. Emma assumed ownership of the Chair Company. She spent most of these years in her Grosse Point Farms home. About this time, Emma's Aunt ,Helen Earle, came to live with her. At the age of 56, Emma married George C Martindale, 32, on December 24, 1924 at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Grand Ledge. The couple continued to travel between the two homes. In September 1944 Emma died at Grosse Point Farms. Per her will, the Lake Shore Road home was sold and her Grand Ledge home and the Grand Ledge Chair Company were left to her sister Zelia Hull. The Hulls did not live in the home, and sold it in 1946 to Maynard and Mary Moynahan.

The Moynahans came to Grand Ledge in 1937 when they purchased Hunters’s Ford Sales and Service on North Bridge Street. In 1940 they bought a Ford dealership in Hastings and started the Maynard J. Moynahan Company in Hastings. In 1944 they sold the Hastings operation and concentrated on Grand Ledge. Maynard was active in the Rotary Club and Civil Air Patrol. In 1953 they sold the Ford dealership to Bob Bryant of Plymouth and retired to a cottage on Nevins Lake in the Upper Peninsula.

The Moynahans felt the home was too large to keep by themselves and they converted it into five apartments. The first floor kitchen back wing was turned into Unit #1. The first floor main area of the home was turned into Unit #2, the “owner’s apartment”. Upstairs bedrooms were joined together to form two large apartments, one on each side of the home. The maid’s rooms at the back of the upstairs were left untouched. Finally a fifth unit was created on the third floor from the front half of the ballroom. At the time, the conversion was praised in the community for keeping the exterior in its historic state and finding a use for the huge home. 

In 1953 Charles and Gertrude Mulvey bought the home. It was then named Mulvey Manor. They had come to Grand Ledge in 1945 from Saginaw when Charles was hired to manage the Grand Ledge Independent. They soon bought the newspaper and ran it together until 1960 when it was sold after Charles was appointed Postmaster of the Michigan House of Representatives.

Gertrude was asked to serve as City Clerk/ Treasurer for the City in October 1961. She held this position until 1974 and initiated many changes in City policy. She was recognized as hard working, progressive and fair minded. She did much to update the bookkeeping, employee relations and benefits for the City. Gertrude was an accomplished pianist, organist, and composer. She and Charles were well known for their Marimba duets at local functions during the 1950’s – especially the annual Lions Club Minstrel Show. She composed music and served as organist for a number of years for the Eastern Star meetings and the Christian Scientist Church. She was an active member of the Methodist Church in Grand Ledge. After Charles death, Gertrude remained in the owner’s apartment until 1978 when she sold the home to Richard Showalter.

Richard was a local realtor. Richard and Margaret “Bunny” Showalter were proud of their home and lived in the owner’s apartment until they sold the home in 1986 to Ron Traen.

Ron and Betty Traen left California to moved into the home in 1986. Ron Traen had many ties to the neighborhood as a child. His aunt, Alice Hershoren lived down the street at 348 West Jefferson. Bernie and Alice Hershoren owned Island City Cleaners on North Bridge Street. Alice’s sister Anne was a presser in the cleaning business and lived with her two sons, Ron and Dan, across the street from the Turnbull home in a house they rented from the Huhn family.  In 1986 Ron’s cousin, Pat Williams the granddaughter of Bernie and Alice, lived across the street on the corner of Scott and Adams in the Wilson-Schavey house.  Ron had dreamed of the home all his life, and when he saw it was for sale, he retired from his California business and came back to work on the historic structure. He took careful measurements of the roof and had special simulated roof tiles manufactured in California. These were installed on the home and added the look of clay tile. He also added skylights into the third floor.  Ron and Betty had further plans for the home. They wanted to restore the balustrade over front porch and work on the rough stone foundation under the carriage house. Sadly Ron died in the home on Nov 3, 1987 and work came to stop. Betty Traen sold the home in 1989 to Kerry and Gretchen Simons who in turn sold it to Mark and Carol Sands the same year