A monumental Motor City mansion is set to be auctioned off next month.
Detroit’s 31,000-plus-square-foot Bishop Mansion listed last May for nearly $9 million, making the 12-bedroom, 11-bathroom estate the most expensive listing in the city. What’s more, its massive footprint also makes it Detroit’s largest home.
But those superlatives didn’t help it find a buyer. The price tag was slashed to $7 million, and then the home was taken off the market.
Now, it’s back, as a lot in a sealed bid auction. The news was first reported by the Detroit Metro Times.
This kind of sale, in comparison to a public auction, “gives a lot of flexibility to bidders to be able to put a value on the home they feel comfortable with and submit it to the seller in a confidential manner,” Luke Schrader, the auction agent handling the sale for Schrader Real Estate and Auction Company, Inc., told The Post.
Built in 1920, the sprawling property was constructed to serve as the official home of the Catholic Bishop of Detroit.
After being occupied by several clergymen — first Bishop Michael J. Gallagher, then Cardinals Edward Mooney and John Francis Dearden — the manse was sold to John Salley, then of the Detroit Pistons. He purchased the 62-room property for $500,000 in the mid-1980s, according to WITL.
In 1995, Salley sold it back into the church, for about $900,000, to Bishop Wayne T. Jackson of Great Faith Ministries International, who in 2017 sold it to the current owners.
The space has recently undergone a number of renovations, including getting new windows, a tile roof and copper gutters, but is still in need of work in parts.
“The detached guest house has been completely renovated to be move-in ready, boasting a heated four-car garage, and provides a glimpse to what can be done to the main home,” reads the auction site.
Listing photos of the main house, meanwhile, show rooms bursting with historic details — millwork galore, multiple fireplaces, ornately carved ceilings, stained glass, pitched roofs and more — and other spaces with contemporary fixtures.
Sealed bids are due by June 10.
