Hexagon House History

Ephraim Shay's Hexagon House

One of the most unique buildings in downtown Harbor Springs sits at the corner of Main and Judd Streets — the Shay Hexagon House. Called the “Shay House,” “Hexagon House,” “Octagon House,” “E. Shay Home” and other monikers since its construction in 1892, the home is listed on the National Register of Historic Place and is covered inside and out in panels of stamped steel. The designer and architect of the home was Ephraim Shay, noted inventor of the Shay geared locomotive and an important figure in Harbor Springs history.

When Shay arrived in town in 1888, he and his wife, Jane, lived in a home on Main Street with their son, Lette. In 1892, 21-year-old Lette married a local girl named Katherine Roe and Ephraim built a new home for himself and Jane and left the original home for the newlyweds.

Beyond a few sentences from local newspapers, little is known about why Shay chose to construct a home in the such a strange shape or out of such novel materials. One article in the Northwestern Lumberman journal from October 8, 1892 does give a brief description of the home, if not Shay’s motives: “Shay is a mechanic through and through ... At the present time he is building a house unlike anything else in Michigan. The outside is composed of sheets of steel pressed into designs representing brick, terra cotta, tile and slate. The inside walls are pressed into all sorts of beautiful designs that may be painted in oils.”

Another article appeared in an 1894 edition of the Daily Resorter, a local newspaper: “Mr. Shay was his own architect and he has evolved an ideal home. The central portion is octagon shaped, and from this extends six wings … The space below in the octagon center is used as a sitting room while the upper portion is used as an observatory ... The basement is fitted up as an office, billiard room and den for Mr. Shay and his son.” 

Unfortunately, no blueprints, plans, drawings or interior photographs have been uncovered to show how truly magnificent the home must have looked when first completed. The lower, central portion of the home is octagon in shape while the upper floor is hexagonal. That, coupled with the six wings off the central structure, is the source of the most commonly used name for the home, the “Hexagon House.” Though those who call the structure the “Octagon” are not incorrect.

Shay had a machine shop, wood shop, blacksmith shop and other outbuildings directly across Judd Street from the home in what is today’s Shay Park. A lower-level entrance to the Hexagon House was placed on that side of the home, off Judd Street, so that business could be conducted in Shay’s office without anyone needing to enter the main story and living space above. According to a letter written many years later by Shay’s granddaughter Abigail, both the original Shay home and the Hexagon House were heated using steam that was piped across the street from the machine shop.

Ephraim Shay’s wife passed away in 1912 and Shay himself died four year later in 1916. After their passing, the home’s history becomes foggy. Shay’s only child, Lette, moved with his family to the Ann Arbor area in the mid 1920s and later to Grand Rapids. For several years, it seems the Hexagon House was rented out as a residence before it was transformed sometime in the 1930s into a commercial property.

Newspaper records show that by 1937 the “Misses Dodge Shop” was in operation in the home along with the “Marie Grund Beauty Shop” and “Mrs. Eugene Gray, Inc.” In later years the Gray shop would be known as “Adelaide’s” and was open through the 1980s. On the basement level of the house a local woman named Margaretta Brucker opened the “Cotton Bale Tea Room” in about 1928. In 1959 the shop was renamed the “Hexagon Tea Room” and run by the Currin family.

In the late 1980s, the late Mary Cay Bartush Jones purchased the property and began to restore the home. The exterior stamped steel had to be replaced and several other important repairs were completed. Mary Cay Jones used one of the rooms of the home as her personal office and rented out another.

In December 2016, May Cay Jones gave the ultimate gift of history when she donated the Shay Hexagon House to the Harbor Springs Area Historical Society. Since then, the Historical Society has meticulously restored the stucture and recently opened the Ephraim Shay Works Museum inside.