Detroit’s Finest

Enter the circa 1892 David C. Whitney mansion through the 9’ tall carved oak private entry doors, and you’ll find a grand staircase leading up two flights of stairs to your third floor living quarters. Two king bedrooms and one queen bedroom are furnished with top of the line mattresses from Costco. Full size laundry machines are in the unit, as well as two full bathrooms.There is a full kitchen and you’ll find the dining table just across the hall in the living room. Additionally, there isa wet bar with counter seating overlooking the downtown skyline! The main refrigerator includes an ice-maker and bottled water, in addition to filtered water. Through the window above your coffee making station, you can see the beautiful downtown skyline. The large TV in the living room features a Firestick and remote linked to our high-speed wi-if. A larger 70” smart tv is located in the cozy circular turret room!

The Queen Ann architecture benefiting the exterior presentation of this home is most prominently displayed in the roof shapes. The large triangular gabled projections of the roof create intimate spaces within.

A 135-year-old house in Detroit has a costarring role in a new vampire movie, featuring a very intriguing romantic couple played by Avengers star Tom Hiddleston and Oscar winner Tilda Swinton of Michael Clayton.

The historic home symbolizes the decaying grandeur of a post-industrial city in Only Lovers Left Alive, which has been drawing good reviews

In real life, the Victorian house at 82 Alfred St. in Brush Park has been undergoing a restoration that started not long after the film crew left.

In the movie, the brick house with the striking turret is the moody abode of Adam (Hiddleston), a centuries-old rock musician-vampire who prefers to dine via blood banks and lives surrounded by old sound equipment, vinyl albums, rare guitars and photos of artists ranging from Franz Kafka to Iggy Pop.

Jeff Cowin, who has renovated 17 homes in the area, bought the 7,000 -square-foot property in December 2012. That was only months after it was filmed.

When Cowin took ownership, the roof leaked through the attic and three floors to the front foyer. The plumbing and wiring needed to be replaced. Much of the plaster on the walls was damaged or missing. He spent a few weeks filling dumpsters with the hoard of items left by the previous owners.

The story of 82 Alfred reflects the ups and downs of Detroit through time. It was built in the late 1870s, then expanded and remodeled to its Queen Anne style by David C. Whitney, son of lumber baron David Whitney Jr., according to Eric Becker, who has researched the historic homes of the Brush Park neighborhood. Whitney used architect Gordon W. Lloyd.

As Detroit changed, so did the house. By the 1920s, the wealthy enclave of Brush Park was becoming a crowded neighborhood for auto industry workers. The home was turned into a rooming house.

By the time Jarmusch's film crew arrived, decades of the city's economic struggles were visible on Alfred Street, where only a few inhabited homes, the remnants of the Gilded Age, still exist.

A fan of the Motor City, Jarmusch has a documentary in the works on Iggy Pop & the Stooges and has collaborated with Jack White and the White Stripes. According to the Detroit location manager for Only Lovers Left Alive, Chris-Teena Constas, she scouted for quite a while before Jarmusch chose 82 Alfred.

"One of the the main and most important locations was Adam's house," said Constas. "They really wanted to stay true and authentic to Detroit and the architecture.”