Dexter Mason Ferry moved to Detroit in 1856 and built a seed company that would eventually make him one of the city’s wealthiest men. His warehouse complex on Monroe Street grew alongside the business, and in 1886 architect Gordon S. Lloyd designed a new eight-story Romanesque warehouse for the company, modeled on Marshall Field’s wholesale store in Chicago and, at the time, the largest industrial building in Detroit.
Ferry-Morse Company, as it became known, ran operations out of the building for decades before relocating in the mid-20th century, and the warehouse sat mostly idle afterward. Jim Papas, a Greek immigrant with roots in the neighborhood, bought the building in the 1980s and converted it into Detroit’s first upscale hotel in years, working it into the larger Trappers Alley development alongside the Gatzaros family’s adjoining property. The Atheneum opened in 1992 with 173 suites and joined Historic Hotels of America in 2023.