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Stefan T. Vail Cooperative House

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Coordinates: 42°17′01.91″N 83°44′30.90″W / 42.2838639°N 83.7419167°W / 42.2838639; -83.7419167
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42°17′01.91″N 83°44′30.90″W / 42.2838639°N 83.7419167°W / 42.2838639; -83.7419167 The Stefan T. Vail Cooperative House (or Vail House) is a housing cooperative for college students at the University of Michigan, Washtenaw Community College, and Eastern Michigan University located at 602 Lawrence Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A member of the Inter-Cooperative Council (ICC) in Ann Arbor, Vail house is named after Stefan Valavanis, a former ICC President who became a notable economist. It is one of only two known adobe buildings in Ann Arbor.[1]

Stefan T. Vail House

History

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The building proper was constructed in 1848 by the family of Thomas and Margaret Mitchell, completed in the American Greek Revival style which typifies many Ann Arbor-area homes of the period.[2] It has been recognized by the Ann Arbor Historical Commission; one of the pillars on the front porch bears a plaque which identifies it as the Hubbell Gregory House. Gregory married the Mitchell's daughter, and his descendants lived there until 1914 when his daughter Jennie Gregory died.[1] Afterwards it became the residence of the family of Horace Greely Prettyman, who owned the Ann Arbor Press and White Swan Laundry.[1] They added the porte cochere at this time.[1] The Prettyman family lived here until around 1945, after which Abbie Schaefer took it over and ran it as a rooming house called Abby House.[1]

In 1960 it was purchased by the Inter-Cooperative Council and opened as women's cooperative housing in the fall of 1961. In 1991, it became the only all-female co-op in the ICC system, though today it is open to any gender.[1]

In addition to being one of the oldest houses in Ann Arbor, Vail House also boasts a magnificent oak tree in its front yard which has been estimated to be over two hundred years old.

Stefan T. Valavanis

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Vail House was named for Stefan T. Vail (or Stephanos Valavanis),[1] who was an ICC member and president in the mid-1950s. While at the University of Michigan, Stefan Vail helped to devise the financial structure of the ICC.[3] After having earned his doctorate in economics, Stefan Vail was an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University from 1956 to 1958.[4] While camping near Mount Olympus in Greece, Stefan Vail was shot and killed by an army deserter who mistook him for a pursuing officer.[5] His death was called a "tragedy" by his senior colleague at the Harvard Economics Department, Seymour Harris, who wrote that Valavanis was "brilliant, imaginative, and a first–class scholar and teacher"; according to Seymour, Valavanis's econometrics textbook had "pedagogical strength", proceeding "more by statements of problems and examples than by the development of mathematical proofs".[6] Soon after, the ICC Board of Directors voted to name the next house they purchased after Vail, in recognizing his contributions to the ICC and to economics.[7] In 1979, European members of the Econometric Society contributed papers to a volume commemorating Valavanis.[8]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wineberg, Marjorie Reade and Susan (1992). HISTORIC BUILDINGS ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN. Ann Arbor Historic District Commission. ISBN 9781882574001.
  2. ^ "Thomas and Margaret Mitchell House, (Gregory House) 1848". Ann Arbor District Library. Retrieved 23 July 2024.
  3. ^ Stephan T. Vail Cooperative House History Archived 2007-03-20 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Valavanis, Stefan (1959). Alfred H. Conrad (from Vail's manuscript) (ed.). Econometrics: An introduction to maximum likelihood methods. Economics handbook series. New York: McGraw–Hill Book Company, Inc.
  5. ^ "Hyder Rollins Dies; Economist Murdered | News | the Harvard Crimson".
  6. ^ Valavanis, Stefan (1959). "Editor's preface". In Harris, Seymour (ed.). Econometrics: An introduction to maximum likelihood methods. Economics handbook series (edited by Alfred H. Conrad (from Vail's manuscript) and posthumously published ed.). New York: McGraw–Hill Book Company, Inc. pp. vii–viii.
  7. ^ Stephan T. Vail Cooperative House History Archived 2010-11-24 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ E. G. Chratis, ed. (1981). Proceedings of the Econometric Society European meeting 1979 (Athens, September 3–6): Selected econometric papers in memory of Stefan Valavanis. Contributions to economic analysis. Vol. 138. pp. xvi+444. ISBN 0-444-86184-X.
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