History Loves Company
Historic Places.
Michigan is full of buildings that deserve to be understood before they disappear. History Loves Company documents the places, the architecture, and the stories behind the structures that shaped this state.
Why This Work Matters
Buildings are documents. We read them before they’re gone.
Every historic building is a primary source. The cornice details, the brick coursing, the storefront proportions, the way a window is set into a wall — these are records of how people lived, what they valued, and what they built when they believed a place was worth building for.
Michigan has lost more of its built history than most states. Detroit alone has demolished thousands of structures that would be landmarks anywhere else. Pontiac, Flint, Saginaw, Bay City, Ypsilanti — every Michigan city carries the weight of what was torn down and the responsibility of what is still standing.
History Loves Company was founded to document what remains — and to make people care about it before it’s too late.
About History Loves Company →Documentation
Cinematic video, photography, and written records of Michigan’s historic buildings before they change or disappear.
Preservation Advocacy
Telling the stories that make people care — because preservation starts with attention, and attention starts with a story.
Community Education
The Michigan Preservation Field Guide, workshops, and resources for people who want to understand the buildings around them.
Physical Presence
The Foundry — inside the historic Riker Building in downtown Pontiac — is where these stories become a space you can walk into.
Places We’ve Documented
The buildings behind the stories.
Every episode, article, and artifact starts with a real place. These are some of the buildings and locations at the center of HLC’s work.
Pontiac, Michigan
The Riker Building
Built in the 1920s at 35 W Huron Street, the Riker Building is one of downtown Pontiac’s most intact commercial structures. Its pressed metal ceilings, original storefront proportions, and Huron Street presence make it a document of the era when Pontiac believed in itself completely. The Foundry now operates from its ground floor.
The Foundry’s Story →Pontiac, Michigan
Downtown Pontiac
One of the most architecturally significant downtowns in Southeast Michigan. The Oakland County Courthouse, the wide boulevards of Huron Street, the surviving commercial blocks — Pontiac’s downtown is a case study in what a mid-sized American city looked like when it was built to last.
Downtown Pontiac Guide →Detroit, Michigan
Detroit’s Built History
Detroit built more significant architecture per square mile than almost any American city — and lost more of it too. HLC documents the buildings that remain, the stories behind the ones that are gone, and the people working to ensure the next generation of Detroit’s built environment is worth keeping.
Watch Detroit Stories →Michigan Statewide
Michigan’s Historic Homes
From Italianate farmhouses in the Thumb to Queen Anne mansions in Bay City, Michigan’s residential architecture tells the story of the state’s industrial wealth, its immigrant communities, and its complicated relationship with preservation. The Forever Home Project works to save the ones still standing.
The Forever Home Project →Michigan Statewide
Historic Real Estate
Chris Hubel represents buyers and sellers of historic, distinctive, and architecturally significant properties across Michigan. Every historic home that finds the right owner is a building that survives.
View Historic Listings →Michigan Statewide
Woodward Avenue Corridor
Woodward Avenue is Michigan’s main street — the spine of the state’s automotive and cultural history. From Detroit’s New Center to Pontiac’s downtown, the corridor is lined with buildings that document a century of ambition, industry, and change. Every August, the Dream Cruise brings it back to life.
Dream Cruise at The Foundry →From the Stories We Keep
Recent stories about place.
Architecture & Identity
What Does ‘Pontiac Built’ Mean?
The story behind the city’s architecture and identity — what Pontiac built, what it lost, and what it’s building again.
Read the Story →The Foundry
Our Story, Our Mission, and Why We Chose Pontiac
Why a historic building in downtown Pontiac became the right home for a storytelling brand built around preservation.
Read the Story →All Stories
The Stories We Keep
The full journal — Michigan history, preservation stories, Foundry updates, and the places worth remembering.
Browse All Stories →Michigan’s Built Environment
The styles that shaped Michigan.
Michigan’s historic architecture spans nearly two centuries of American building tradition. These are the styles you’ll find in its downtowns, neighborhoods, and countryside — and the ones HLC documents most often.
Italianate
Dominant in Michigan from the 1850s–1880s. Low-pitched roofs, wide overhanging eaves with decorative brackets, tall narrow windows with elaborate hoods, and ornate cornices. Common in commercial blocks and farmhouses across the state.
Queen Anne
The dominant residential style of the 1880s–1910s. Asymmetrical facades, wrap-around porches, decorative shingles, turrets, and complex rooflines. Michigan’s industrial wealth produced some of the finest Queen Anne homes in the Midwest.
Beaux-Arts
The language of civic ambition. Symmetrical facades, classical columns, rusticated stone bases, and elaborate ornamentation. Michigan’s courthouses, banks, and public buildings from 1890–1920 speak this language — including the Oakland County Courthouse in Pontiac.
Art Deco
The style of the machine age — geometric ornament, vertical emphasis, streamlined forms, and materials like terra cotta, chrome, and glass block. Detroit produced some of America’s finest Art Deco commercial architecture in the 1920s and 1930s.
Craftsman
A reaction against Victorian excess. Low-pitched roofs, wide front porches, exposed structural elements, and natural materials. Michigan’s working-class neighborhoods are full of Craftsman bungalows built between 1905 and 1930 — modest, honest, and built to last.
Mid-Century Modern
The optimism of postwar America in built form. Flat or low-pitched roofs, large windows, open floor plans, and integration with the landscape. Michigan’s automotive wealth funded some of the most significant mid-century residential and commercial architecture in the country.
Shop the Story
Take the place home.
Every HLC product starts with a real place. Prints, apparel, artifacts, and objects connected to Michigan’s built history.
Architecture & Place
Prints, apparel, and objects that center the built environment and the places that define Michigan.
Shop →Fine Art Prints
Museum-quality Artifact Prints documenting Michigan places, Detroit landmarks, and moments of architectural significance.
Shop →Artifacts & Americana
Original objects rooted in American material culture — Detroit and Michigan memorabilia, industrial relics, and documented artifacts.
Shop →Pontiac Built
Apparel, prints, and objects designed around Pontiac, Michigan and the heritage of a city that is very much still here.
Shop →Resources
Learn to see what’s still standing.
Michigan Preservation Field Guide
Free from HLC. How to identify architectural styles, document buildings, research history, and understand what you’re looking at.
Get the Free Guide →Watch History Loves Company
Cinematic documentary episodes on YouTube covering Michigan’s historic places, preservation fights, and the stories behind the buildings.
Watch Episodes →The Forever Home Project
HLC’s initiative to restore Michigan’s historic homes while creating opportunities for people rebuilding their own lives through preservation work.
Learn More →Historic Real Estate
Buy or sell a historic, distinctive, or architecturally significant property in Michigan with Chris Hubel of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate.
View Listings →Stories We Keep
Get the stories before the buildings are gone.
Michigan history, preservation stories, new episode alerts, Foundry announcements, and the places worth paying attention to — delivered to your inbox.
Subscribe to Stories We Keep →