Carolyn Nilson

“Have you ever heard of a woman named Carolyn Nilson? Have you ever heard of the 3 houses on the hill, on Prospect Street? Let me tell you about them.

Carolyn Nilson came to the U.S. from Sweden & eventually moved to Romeo early in the 1940’s. She purchased all of the land from Minot to Gates and Prospect to Morton, including the 3 houses on the hill. The first house was at 240 Minot, on the NW corner of Prospect and Minot. The second, “the middle house”, was at 419 Prospect, just north of the first and the third was at 439 Prospect, just north of the 2nd house and south of the Romeo Church of Christ. 

Although married, Ms. Nilson used her maiden name professionally. She had been trained in cosmetology (or something similar) in Stockholm and ran a successful business promoting health, wellness and beauty. She commuted to her salon in Detroit in the Book Cadillac Hotel, selling her “Wonder cosmetic preparations”, while also running the Wonder Health Farm in Romeo at her house at 439 Prospect. The health farm opened in 1943 & was a spa where wealthy people came to stay & receive health & beauty treatments. Her adult son & his wife ran the Hilltop Gift Shop from the middle house property, while Carolyn Nilson & her husband and young daughter lived in the Wonder Farm house. There are many mentions in the Romeo Observer of the gay & festive events hosted by her at her newly renovated Batchelder Hall or Wonder Farm, complete with her famous Swedish Smorgasbord. She started subdividing her land into the Wonderlane subdivision by the mid-late 1940’s. 

By 1963, Carolyn Nilson was nearly 80, widowed & self-described as “cash poor but property rich”. Romeo neighbors described her as very elegant. She was living in Birmingham but still owned the 3 large houses on the hill in Romeo.

My parents, Elenor & Lloyd Johnson, moved to Michigan from Minnesota in the early 1950’s when Dad took a job as a project engineer for Chrysler in Highland Park. In 1963, with 8 children (#9 arrived the following year) in the car, they found themselves looking at homes for sale in Romeo. In fact, our family has an audio recording of their impressions of Romeo, the first time they drove through town and saw the sign offering the Minot house for rent/sale. Shortly after that they met up with Carolyn Nilson to look at all 3 of her houses on the hill. They immediately hit it off with Carolyn Nilson as my father was a child of immigrants from Sweden & Norway and could speak Swedish. She took a shine to this young couple & wanted to help them find a home. The house at 240 Minot was nice and a possibility. The middle house was much too large, according to my parents. Then they walked in the front door of the 3rd house at 439 Prospect. The family story has always been that Dad saw the sun shining from the window at the top of the main stairway & onto the chandelier in the hall & that was it. But my eldest brother said that as soon they walked in the front door, the whole family knew this was the house for us. 

The house certainly needed work, although of the 3, it was in the best shape & had all the original fixtures. I don’t think people these days realize the level of restoration that was necessary with the old houses back then. It had sat empty for more than a decade so the interior was very dusty. Mom told me the floors were so filthy that our feet were black on the bottom after walking through the house. She went to the house before we moved in and scrubbed every single room’s hardwood floors. That’s more than 5600 sq ft of floors to scrub! In addition, plaster was falling due to leaks in the roof, the exterior paint was mostly gone with bare wood exposed and all 3 porches were in need of restoration with rotted steps & boards and many spindles missing.  Mice weren’t the only critters that had taken up residence – pigeons were living in the attic after having broken most of the windows in the cupola. The immediate need was to protect it from the elements and further damage. But my parents were young & energetic and set about the work with enthusiasm, and also with help from the older kids, as well as my mom’s brother from Minnesota. I don’t recall anything ever being hired out – they did all the work themselves, buying any tools necessary to complete any task.

In the meantime, the middle house, which was built by one of the Giddings brothers & later referred to as Batchelder Hall, remained empty except for the occasional rentals by families who stayed there until they found something better suited for their family. It was just so large. 

One of our friends, Colleen LaBelle Savage whose family lived there described it this way: “Wow, what memories.  My parents (Peg and Frank LaBelle) were building a home south of Romeo and rented the mansion next to Shawn’s house for three months.  I’ll never forget that home. There was a room off the back of the house that had bats and one got in the house. My dad was running around with a pipe wrench trying to hit it. We also only lived on the first floor. Four kids and 4 beds, dressers and toys all fit into a single bedroom with room to play. The bathroom had 1 sink but 2 toilets.  . Every bedroom (I think there were 6) had a large fireplace. We had mice that got into our food and pigeons in the top part of the house.  What an adventure. We were the last occupants of the house. We also were told the house was part of the Underground Railroad.” 

I remember, as a child, playing on and under the massive front porch & I didn’t have to duck to walk under the brick arches under the porch. My sister, Sheila, recalls being inside and marveling at the beautiful spiral stairway that went from the main floor all the way up to the cupola. I imagine this feature, along with the massive size of this house made it quite expensive to heat in the winter! 

The middle house changed hands several times after Carolyn Nilson sold it and ended up in the hands of developers, slated for demolition. My parents as well as plenty of others in the community tried in vain to stop the demolition. Even the Romeo Historical Society, still in its infancy, was unable to save it. One of my sisters, Sherri, has a very vivid memory of that sad day when demolition began: “I was preschool age when I watched, with Mom, in the driveway as the wrecking ball hit the middle house.  My interpretation was that this monster was coming for our house next. Mom answered that it wouldn’t and I only remember wondering how she knew.  We stood by the sidewalk that led from the driveway to our front door. There were quite a few neighbors watching with us as the wrecking ball hit the north side of the house.” That house didn’t come down easily! My mom said that the brick walls were 6 bricks thick! It was built before the Civil War and it was built to last! Certainly a lot of history was lost when that house came down.

Before the house was demolished, notable features were removed, including the marble fireplaces and certain metal work. There are a good number of houses in Romeo that have a fireplace that came from that house. Also, the iconic metalwork that is at Starkweather Arts Center & is used for their logo, came from the middle house property.

After demolition, the hill was re-graded & condominiums were built below the hill, near the stone wall on Prospect Street. Several years later, townhouses were built up at the top of the hill, near where the middle house previously sat. Those condominiums and townhouses certainly changed the neighborhood! 

If you’re in Romeo, take a walk or a drive down Prospect Street and you will see the stone wall that is all that remains from the middle house. Try to imagine what that block looked like with those 3 large houses on the hill, when the middle house was still there. 

We couldn’t save the middle house back then, and we couldn’t save the old school building more recently but we do have an opportunity to save this piece of land in Romeo – land that has been used by the public for 170 years. Land that could continue to be enjoyed by the public. Please join us in supporting the GSOPS project so that we can all still enjoy this beautiful parcel right in the village.”

Photo credits: compiled by the Johnson family