Almost 140 Years Old: The Hugh Richard House, Jackson (1888)

One of Jackson’s most recognizable structures is the Hugh H. Richard House, a/k/a The Hand Building and Fossores Chapter House.

You can find this manse located at 505 Wildwood Avenue.

Although it’s a fairly big size, it was built as a single-family home. In 1828, when Hugh was only four years old, his family left Ireland and came to the United States, settling in New York. In 1833, they moved to Michigan near Tecumseh; when Hugh was 45 years old in 1869, he packed up and moved to Jackson.

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In about 1869 he moved to Jackson and continued working as a mason until he retired in the late 1880s. Around 1888 he finally got around to building this house for him and his family.

After Hugh died in 1893, ownership of the house went to his daughter Alice and husband Arthur Bennett.

Bennett, general manager of the Bennett Sewer Pipe Company, died in 1930. Ever since his passing, the house became a favorite office space for various professionals. By the 1970s it was used for nothing BUT office space.

In 2018 pastor David McDonald bought the house and re-dubbed it the Fossores Chapter House, "a research and development center for creative pastors."

The house became an entry in the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.