Westphal, August, Farmstead - Brighton, Michigan
Posted by: 
GT.US
N 42° 31.689 W 083° 49.435
17T E 268065 N 4712283
The August Westphal farm is located at 6430 Brighton Road in Brighton, Michigan.
Waymark Code: WM878Z
Location: Michigan, United States
Date Posted: 02/13/2010
Views: 5
The State of Michigan Preservation website at (
visit link) tells us:
"The August Westphal Farmstead is located about two miles west of the city of Brighton an occupies a parcel of approximately four acres. The property contains a large farmhouse, two basement barns, a corn crib, wagon shed, chicken coop, smokehouse, privy, and a water-shed. Built in 1875, the farmhouse is a vernacular, Italianate, two-story structure set on a fieldstone foundation with two, one-story extensions. Of balloon-frame construction, the house is clad in shiplap or novelty siding. The main section is topped with a belvedere. The exterior displays fanciful, sawn-wood ornamentation on the belvedere, bay window, porches, and window hoods. The ogee-arched wooden front porch shelters an unusual entrance consisting of two separate, side-by-side, arched and paneled doors. The interior of the house is unusually ornate for a country farmhouse and includes wide plaster cornice moldings and ceiling medallions in the parlor and living room.
The August Westphal Farmstead is significant as an intact nineteenth-century farmstead that includes a variety of farm buildings and an unusual vernacular Italianate farmhouse. It is also historically significant for its associations with the early German community of Genoa Township. August Westphal, an immigrant from Germany, purchased the first eighty acres of the farm in 1853. After his marriage in 1855 to Barbara Ernsbery, he and his wife moved to the farm and constructed a small frame house. In 1868, the first large basement barn was built on the property which then consisted of one hundred twenty acres. In 1875 the Westphals had their Italianate farmhouse built. Christopher Blackburn served as the builder on the house. In 1916, owning a total of two hundred and five acres, the Westphals sold the farm to another German family, that of Conrad Seim who continued to farm the property until 1967. The land was sold to a developer and subdivided, leaving the farmhouse on a four acre parcel. The house is currently privately owned."