For a few hours Thursday, the opulence of a forgotten Detroit and the promise of its revival, was on display.

The doors to the Charles T. Fisher Mansion in Boston Edison, a 36-block neighborhood of stately homes, were open to the media and select guests as a preview of the Junior League of Detroit's gala on Friday and 22nd Designers' Show House.

The historic,16,000-square-foot house was originally owned by Charles and Sarah Fisher, who, in 1922, moved into it. In the past year, the house's new owner, actor Hill Harper, has been renovating — and restoring it to its former glory — with the intention of making it a place to raise his young son.

"This is going to be my primary residence," said Harper, who added that he came to love Detroit while filming roles here and has since made several close friends. "There's an energy in the city, a creative energy."

An Iowa native, Harper is the son of a psychiatrist and anesthesiologist. He graduated from Brown and Harvard universities, with degrees in public administration and law.

One of his latest acting roles is playing Dr. Marcus Andrews on ABC's "The Good Doctor."

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In addition to the house, the Iowa native also owns the Roasting Plant location in downtown Detroit.

"There are people who are interested in being entrepreneurs," Harper, 52, said of his adopted city. "There are people interested in social justice — all those things I'm interested in. I like being around that energy."

Throughout the late morning and early afternoon, dozens of Michigan designers — and Harper — talked about the mansion's luxurious past and its future as Harper's home.

"I did most of the design," Harper said. "All of what you see I did, in terms of the layout."

Chandra Moore of coG Studios in Detroit is the project's lead architectural designer.

The second floor of the home, Harper said, will be his private residence that can be shut off from the rest of the house. The three other floors — basement, ground and third levels — will be used for guests and entertainment.

For the decor, Harper turned to dozens of designers who spent weeks and months setting up spaces for the Junior League tour. Afterward, if Harper likes the designs, he will purchase the furnishings. Some of them, however, he said he may change.

In many ways, the mansion represents a Detroit that was once referred to as the "Paris of the Midwest," before the grandeur of one of America's largest and cities was replaced by images of urban decay and despair.

"This house is going to be a house that is going to be of national significance," Harper said. "It's going to be a house that I want everybody in Detroit and everybody in the state of Michigan to be proud of. It's going to be a landmark."

The renovated mansion even had signature matchbooks.

The Fisher Mansion certainly has a distinguished place in Detroit history.

Charles Fisher, along with his brother and uncle, founded the Fisher Body Co., the world's largest manufacturer of auto bodies in the 1910s. The architect for the house was George Mason, and his apprentice, Albert Kahn, designed, among other other structures, the Fisher Building.

The mansion is full of grand and subtle touches: a pair of lions guard the iron, glass and bronze front door, an English walnut stairway leads to the second floor and down to a lower level, and one carving of a lion holds a shield with the original Cadillac design.

There are elaborate plaster moldings, six fireplaces and four vaults. There's a mahogany organ with 840 pipes, an automatic violin and tile by Champion Spark Plug Co. And, according to the tour book, a secret tunnel from the lower level to the carriage house.

During the Thursday tour, two star-struck fans from the Grosse Pointes posed with Harper for a photo.

"Oh my gosh," a giddy Dona Reynolds of Grosse Pointe Woods said. "This is phenomenal."

"I like the pops of color," her friend, Rita Goss of Grosse Pointe Farms, added. "As you go through there are these surprises. the decorating is exquisite."

And at one point during the tour, designer Stacy Evans of Savvy Interior Designs, cried as she talked about the pieces she lovingly selected — old leather chairs, an old Bible, family heirlooms that had belonged to her late grandmother, who also was an interior designer — to fill a third-floor room.

Longtime mansion caretakers Charlie and Tristan Putnam, who live in a 2,000 square-foot space in the mansion's carriage house, said Harper has transformed the house, which had been owned by a Fisher relative.

"There were rooms on top of rooms on top of rooms," Charlie Putnam said, describing the house's dated look and feel before it was sold. "Hill came here and re-envisioned the mansion to be a sensible space."

A third-floor indoor gymnasium was turned into an art studio.

Paint covering gold gilding was removed.

As an actor, Harper said he spends much of his time filming on the road.

"You have to go where the work is," he said. "But, I have a son, and I want him to have a home base, so he has consistency, consistent school. He's not old enough to start first grade yet. But, we're going to take a look at a school tomorrow."

Contact Frank Witsil: fwitsil@freepress.com

If you go: A moment in Time at Fisher Mansion

The gala, dubbed A moment in time at Fisher Mansion, begins at 7 p.m. at the mansion, 670 W. Boston Blvd. A VIP reception begins at 6 p.m. Ticket prices range from $150 to $600.

After that, tours will be held Saturday, Sunday and then Sept. 20-23, 27-30 and Oct 4-7. Tickets are $35. The proceeds go to support community programs, including Project EAT, Cass Community Social Services, the Empowerment Plan, Forgotten Harvest, and Humble Design.

To purchase tickets, go online at aspiremetro.com/fishermansionevents.