DETROIT, MI - Kenneth Bresnan hopes his 3,800-square-foot "baby mansion" on Detroit's Grayhaven Island will end up being worth the pile of money he's poured into the 1929 Spanish Mission-style home.

The 450 Keelson Dr. house, complete with a private boat well, 150 feet of canal front, a private drive, speakeasy and its fair share of Detroit history, has been on the market since last fall, and although Bresnan's has got a few nibbles, no one's jumped on the Detroit mansion.

He's asking $1.2 million for the house, which he bought in 2006.

The owner admit, the house needs a substantial amount of work -- it's got good bones, though.

Bresnan has lived in the house off and on since he bought it for $800,000. He intended to do some quick renovations to the four-bedroom home, but when the housing market took a hit in 2008, he became stuck.

It's been rented out to a few different tenants since then, but after a little bit of a fiasco in 2009, Bresnan moved back into the house, and has been researching it, trying to fix it up and sell it since then.

The problem, Bresnan said, is that he doesn't have time to do all of the work the house needs.

He said he's put between $20,000 and $25,000 into the former home of the Dossin family since he bought it.

It still needs some roof repairs and and cosmetic work, he said.



He loves the house's history, though.

The house was one of 18 built by affluent Detroit families in the '20s. Most of the other mini-mansions have since been torn down -- boat wells leading to nowhere line the canal the Dossin home sits on -- but much of the island's history is preserved in Bresnan's house.

Starting at the front door, the original owners' knack for opulence and imitation is prevalent. The facade over the front door is decorated with stone dragons, which Bresnan said are meant to be good luck.

After former girlfriend investigated the house a bit, Bresnan discovered that though much of the house's decor is ornate, it's all pulled from a hodgepodge of different periods in history.

The four-bedroom, three-bathroom home is meant for the summer, Bresnan said, as the boat well underneath the house keeps things rather cool.

He doesn't use the air conditioning in the summer.

An airy great room features a painted-vellum ceiling that, while beautiful, was never fully finished. A massive fireplace sits at once end of the room; Bresnan believes the mantel was taken straight out of a house or castle in England.

The great room at 450 Keelson.

The crests on the mantel indicate some ties to royalty, he said.

Windows along the back wall of the great room open to a patio overlooking the canal. In summer months, Bresnan said the breeze off the Detroit River is pleasant, and the surrounding area is fairly quiet.

Though there are only four bedrooms in a fairly large house, the place is full of old-fashioned nooks and crannies.

There's a library or study area in the front of the house, which opens to an enclosed porch. The small room has hardwood walls and baroque crown molding.

While the kitchen needs work, the original cabinets are still in place and the tile backsplash has been restored. The butler's pantry off the kitchen is beautifully decorated, and gorgeous plaster crown molding in the dining room show the minute details notched into the entire house.

But perhaps the biggest selling points of the home are in the little glimpses of history.

First, there's an organ room with an entrance just off the staircase in the foyer. The 120-square-foot room was once filled with a functioning pipe organ, Bresnan said. Now it could serve a cool office or club house for younger members of a family.

The great room in the back of the baby mansion features ornate vaulted ceilings.

The master bedroom, complete with a small balcony overlooking the bay, contains a small door that opens to look out over the great room on the main floor. In the 1920s or 30s, the door would have been used so the master of the house could look out over party guests after retiring to his room for a brandy.

The master bathroom is covered in black and gold, and was one of the main selling points for Bresnan back in 2006. He said the shower, which has multiple heads, got him.

Well, the nice shower and the hidden speakeasy in the boat well.

Bresnan said the old owners of the house used to be part-time bootleggers, running booze across the Detroit River from Canada every now and then. Since they had their own boat well, it wasn't hard to get a few crates of hooch into the house.

From the boat well, which was iced over in April, a little room the looks like a closet opens into what looks like a walled-off wet bar. The cramped bar has another wooden panel, though, which slides up to open up into a roomy speakeasy.

It could be a cozy, private, man (or woman) cave, but now Bresnan rents it out sometimes for private parties. The room has tile floors and a working fireplace.

There's an original pool table down there, too.

Bresnan is currently renovating the old butler's quarters on the main floor, but he said the little details of the old mansion warrant the asking price.

The staircase features a wooden railing with custom, hand-carved details.

Things like white brass doorknobs, leaded glass, cork floors and hand-carved railings on the stairs all add to the draw of the fixer-upper.

He said some of the negative media attention he received from an original listing, which contained photos that weren't professionally shot and showed the house in various states of clutter, doesn't do the home justice.

He hopes someone gets in touch with him soon, because the house is a great piece of Detroit history, he said.

The full listing of one of Grayhaven Island's last miniature mansions can be found here.

Ian Thibodeau is the business and development reporter for MLive Media Group in Detroit. He can be reached at ithibode@mlive.com, or follow him on Twitter.