The Whitney restaurant celebrates 131 years as a mansion with a special dinner
It was 131 years ago that one of Detroit's landmark mansions, the Whitney on Woodward Avenue, built for a lumber baron and his family, came to be.
In honor of its long-standing presence and preservation on Woodward Avenue in Midtown Detroit, and as a fine dining restaurant for decades, the Whitney is celebrating those 131 years.
Throughout May, the restaurant will offer a swanky steak and seafood dinner for two, priced at $131, exclusive of tax and gratuity. The dinner, available Sunday-Friday, also celebrates National Preservation Month with a portion of the dinner cost earmarked for preservation projects. Its projects aim to keep the Whitney's historic mansion beatuty, charm and opulence.
The mansion, completed in 1894, cost $400,000 at the time and is one of Detroit's most ornate and stately mansions, with a long history.
On Woodward Avenue at Canfield, David Whitney Jr. built the 22,000-square-foot mansion for himself and his second wife, Sara, the sister of his first wife, Flora Ann McLaughlin, who died in 1882.
Years after the couple's deaths, the mansion's carriage house was home to the Visiting Nurse Association offices, and the mansion was home to the Wayne County Medical Society. By 1941, the Whitney family had given the house to the Wayne County Medical Society.
In 1986, after extensive renovations, the legendary mansion became the Whitney restaurant and was known for its fine dining amid the mansion's first and second floors. It is also known as one of Detroit's most haunted places; its popular Ghost Bar is on the third floor, and the restaurant features paranormal tours and special dinners throughout the year.
This month, The Whitney, owned by Bud Liebler since 2007, is celebrating its long history in honor of May's dedicated National Preservation Month, which reflects on protecting historical landmarks, buildings, and artifacts.
While the restaurant has long celebrated its historic roots and haunted past, this is the first time they are pegging it to National Preservation Month as one of Woodward Avenue's long-standing mansions. The Whitney is featured as a Top Pick in the recently published Michelin Detroit Green Guide and also received accolades as a Michigan Best Classic Restaurant by Food & Wine Magazine.
'We're hoping diners will take advantage of this special dinner and experience for themselves what 'the good old days' must have been like on Woodward Avenue,' said Liebler in a news release. 'While we celebrate the mansion's first 131 years, we're doing everything we can to keep it standing and thriving for another 131.'
The Whitney mansion is one of Detroit's most iconic mansions, and that in itself is a reason to celebrate it.
But according to a July 8, 1928, Free Press article titled 'City's Old Mansions Fast Disappearing,' spacious and elegant estates that lined Woodward Avenue were being torn down.
'March of progress spells doom for stately homes of earlier days,' read another headline.According to the article, mansions were wrecked to make room for a 'busier Detroit.''One by one Detroit's storied old mansions are coming down,' according to the article by I.T. Martin. Lumber used for interiors of many of these mansions, Martin wrote, came from Michigan timber.
Replacing these mansions, Martin wrote, were 'modern homes and apartment hotels.' Being 'too close to the city to suit the owners' was a reason cited by Martin for mansions on the market.
Luckily, the Whitney mansion didn't succumb to the wrecking ball. Martin described the Whitney mansion as having an 'interior finish that is practically impossible to reproduce' and possibly the reason for it 'escaping the wrecking crew.'
Throughout May, Sunday-Friday, the restaurant celebratory dinner for two, features a 24-ounce bone-in ribeye carved tableside and paired with four jumbo shrimp. The celebratory ribeye is sourced from Fairway Packing in Fraser, where it is dry-aged inside the meat distributors' impressive Himalayan salt wall aging room.
Served with mashed potatoes and asparagus, and a choice of soup or salad and dessert, the dinner for two is $131 (tax and gratuity are extra). The special dinner honors the 131 years the mansion has stood on Woodward Avenue. With each dinner for two, the restaurant says $31 is earmarked toward its restoration projects that help maintain the historic nature and future of the mansion. It's regular, a la carte menu will also be available.
The Whitney also offers a loyalty membership to its Preservation Partner and Social Club. Now in place for more than five years, for a $100 initial and annual membership payment, members receive exclusive benefits, offering opportunities to access events, special discounts, and promotional items throughout the year. Details are at thewhitney.com. plus:
$25 gift card
Complimentary steak and lobster tail combination entrée on your birthday.
Ongoing 10% discount on your total food check.
A $20 discount on all bottled wine from the restaurant list priced at $50 or more.
Guaranteed VIP (Very Important Partner) reservations with 24 hours' notice.
Invitation to two complimentary annual partner appreciation social events.
Starting May 15, The Whitney's popular weekly garden parties return. A full schedule of bands and musicians performing is at thewhitney.com.
Contact Detroit Free Press food and restaurant writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news and tips to: sselasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter. Subscribe to the Free Press.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Dry-aged bone-in ribeye highlights a month long Whitney special
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