Marvin gaye detroit home

Die-hard Motown fans who have more than a million dollars to spend and wouldn't mind moving to Detroit can now own a part of their favorite genre's history.

The palatial home once owned by Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr hit the market late last month with the asking price of just shy of $1.3million, making it Detroit's second-most expensive residential listing.

Built in 1917 by self-made lumber Danish lumber magnate Nels Michelson, the sprawling 10,500-square-foot, 10-bedroom, nine-bath home is located at 918 West Boston Boulevard, in the heart of the city's historic Boston-Edison district.

It was later determined that Gay Sr. was suffering from a brain tumor.

Marvin Gaye was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990. Soon Anna moved into the handsome brick ranch on West Outer Drive with her young artist husband, launching what would become the greatest creative period in his tumultuous career.

His name was Marvin Gaye.

Gaye, then on the brink of superstardom with “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” had grown weary of the stale formula Motown prescribed for him and was tired of being known as the label’s sex symbol.

But he took it seriously and began to train in earnest with Barney and Farr.

When Lions coach Joe Schmidt finally gave him a tryout, Gaye held his own. Even though there was no romance between them, they convincingly portrayed lovers in song after song, including the popular “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing,” and “Your Precious Love.”

Marvin Gaye’s best-known album, What’s Going On? was created in reaction to Tammi Terrell’s untimely death from a brain tumor in 1970.

The leaders of Motown Records, however, believed that Gaye could become a major pop and R&B success.

Real estate agent Deborah Smith, who is handling the high-priced listing, told Realtor.com that after Gordy moved his record company to Los Angeles in 1970s, his plush Detroit abode fell on hard times.

When the home's current owner, Gordy's former neighbor Cynthia Reaves, bought the property in 2002, she gave it a top-to-bottom makeover and restored it to its former Motown Mansion glory, which even earned her an award for historic preservation.

As the mansion was being built a century ago, it took craftsmen three years to carve set of intricate library doors out of teak, reported Detroit Free Press.

When Gordy, who ensured Motown Records’ success in the late 1960s by signing such legendary acts as the Supremes, the Temptations, the Jackson 5 and Stevie Wonder, purchased the home in 1967, he made a few adjustments to the property.

One of the changes he made was he built a small stage in the basement ballroom where What's Going On and Sexual Healing singer Marvin Gaye once performed during a party.

According to the listing agent, the mansion's future owner will be expected to maintain its historic structure.

Share or comment on this article: Berry Gordy's Detroit mansion where Marvin Gaye sang hits market at $1.3m

Marvin Gaye was born on April 2, 1939 in Washington D.C.

During his high school years, he joined a few different singing groups, until he dropped out of school in 1956.

Joining his first musical group in high school, the DC Tones, he dropped out of school when he was 17 to escape his father’s abuse. As a person, Gaye preferred crooning and singing standards like those of Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. Within months, Barney and his Lions teammate Mel Farr would join forces with Bobby Rogers of the Miracles to play a key role in the making of Gaye’s seminal 1971 album, What’s Going On, providing background vocals on the title track.

Cisley Creech, a Detroit schoolteacher who lives in Gaye’s old house today, remembers it well.

“That was the song in the day!” she says.

The making of “What’s Going On”

In the spring of 1970, as Marvin Gaye was struggling to emerge from a deep depression after the death of Tammi Terrell, he was holed up in the house on Outer Drive tinkering with a new song written by Al Cleveland and the Four Tops’ Obie Benson.

Benson had just returned to Detroit from California, where he’d witnessed a brutal police crackdown on peaceful war protesters.

In the wake of the city’s violent rebellion and at the height of the Vietnam War, all of that was about to change.

In the summer of 1968, Detroit Lions defensive back Lem Barney took a break from training camp one day to drive down Woodward Avenue in search of his favorite singer. “I said, ‘Hey, Marvin, I just wanted to introduce myself.

Other accounts say the singer added the “e” himself to avoid the association of “gay” with homosexuality.

His first Motown hit was “Stubborn Kind of Fellow” in 1962. So I just walk up on the porch and ring the bell.”

Much to his surprise, Gaye answered the door.

“I couldn’t believe it!” Barney says.

“And the rest is history.”

Back to the studio

To mark the 45th anniversary of the release of What’s Going On, Barney recently embarked on a historic tour of Detroit, returning to Motown’s original headquarters on West Grand Boulevard, where he and Farr cut their vocals all those years ago.

“I still get goose bumps walking in here,” Barney said.

Conspicuously absent in Studio A was his old friend and teammate Farr, who died last August at the age of 70.

“I’m hearing all the Motown on the radio and I’m digging the music, and one day I just decided I wanted to meet Marvin.”

Barney, then just 22, found his way down to Palmer Park, where he’d heard some of Motown’s biggest stars played golf. “I was like, ‘Come on, man!’”

But Gaye wasn’t joking.

“So we jump in the car and head on down to Motown,” Barney says.

After a few drinks, Gaye sat down at the piano and proceeded to teach the new song to his houseguests.

Once they got their parts down, Gaye jumped up and announced, “Come on, we’re going down to the studio and record this!”

Barney was incredulous.