MI Dream Home: Ex-Czech consulate in Northville lists for $9.9M
The home that housed former a Czech Republic consulate in Metro Detroit is up for sale.
The asking price: $9.9 million.
Patricia Herriman of Max Broock Realtors claims the colonial-style mansion is the most unique property in southeast Michigan.
“It’s an oasis in Northville,” she said. “And it's walking distance to downtown Northville.”
The three-story brick house’s 11,000-square-feet encompass five bedrooms, seven full bathrooms and two half-baths. There's also a small theater, designed after the famous Paramount Theatre movie house in New York.
Built in 2000, the house sits on more than six acres of land that’s located between Eight Mile and Main Street and between Center Street and Beck Road.
Its amenities include gated entry with a guard house. It also has a fountain, an elevator and a 2,052-square-foot garage with seven parking spaces. It also has a helicopter landing pad on the grounds.
According to property records, the home’s owner is millionaire and businessman Dr. Thomas Prose.
Prose was once the owner of the Plymouth Community Crier newspaper. He grabbed headlines in 2001 for suing the city for $100 million because police arrested him for violating a protection order granted to a business competitor.
In 2004, Northville’s city council enacted an ordinance regulating where helicopters can land in the community because Prose’s neighbors complained about his landing a chopper in his backyard.
The same year, Prose and the Czech Republic said the home was an honorary consulate of the central European country, while he was given an honorary title to look after the nation’s affairs in Michigan and Ohio.
The designation sparked a fight between Prose and Northville over a $100,000 tax bill. It ended in October 2005 when the Czech Republic said Prose resigned as its honorary consul.
The home was first listed about four years ago. See the listing here.
Previous Dream Homes:
An Italian villa in Bloomfield Hills
An Oxford Township sky ranch with a private airport
Unfinished Grosse Ile mansion lists for $29 million