{"id":233,"date":"2026-10-10T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/?p=233"},"modified":"2026-10-09T16:51:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T16:51:59","slug":"meyer-may-house-to-remain-owned-operated-by-steelcase-in-light-of-hni-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/?p=233","title":{"rendered":"Meyer May House to remain owned, operated by Steelcase in light of HNI merger"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Arguably one of the most recognizable historical landmarks of the city of Grand Rapids, the Meyer May House, has recently been the subject of concerns regarding its ongoing preservation. This is due to the fact that the HNI Corporation, an Iowa based furniture company, announced on August 4, 2025 that they were entering an agreement to acquire Steelcase<\/a>, a furniture company based in Grand Rapids and the current owners of the Meyer May House, for a total of $2.2 billion. On December 10, 2025, it was announced they had officially completed the acquisition of Steelcase<\/a>. During the acquisition process, neither Steelcase or the HNI Corporation stated if they had intended on keeping the Meyer May House and the adjacent visitor center. In light of the completion of the acquisition of Steelcase, I reached out for comment regarding the current status of the Meyer May House. In response Chiara Licari, brand communications leader at Steelcase, simply stated, \u201cThe Meyer May House and the neighboring home, which is used as a visitor center, continue to be owned by Steelcase, recognizing this important part of Grand Rapids history. There are no changes planned.\u201d, confirming that this piece of Grand Rapidian history will continue to be preserved into the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Arguably the most notable reason for the Meyer May House\u2019s prominence as a historical site has to do with the architect that designed it; Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright has widely been considered to be one of, if not the most famous and important architects in American history, to the extent that the American Institute of Architects gave him the title of \u201cgreatest American architect of all time\u201d<\/a>. In total, Wright designed 1,114 buildings, of which 532 were actually built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Meyer May House is considered to be a prime example of prairie style architecture. Developed out of a desire to create an originally American style of architecture, the prairie style is predominately defined by a few different aspects. One notable trait of prairie style architecture is an emphasis on the horizontal. Wright had described these types of buildings as being \u201cmarried to the ground\u201d<\/a>. Many examples of this defining trait can be found in the Meyer May House. One of the most notable can be found in the brickwork of the building. Two differently colored mortars were used to hold the bricks together, with the mortar on the side of bricks being formulated to blend in with the brick, giving the illusion of solid horizontal lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Meyer May House was originally commissioned by, as the name likely already gave away, Meyer May. After taking over his family\u2019s clothing store in 1906 due to the death of his father, Abraham May, Meyer May became a successful business owner in downtown Grand Rapids, being notable for being the first clothing store in the United States to use the Batts hanger. Meyer May and his wife Sophie May, commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design the house in 1908, with construction finishing in 1909.<\/a> Finishing touches on the interior of the house, such as a notable mural depicting flowers in the kitchen of the house, were completed in 1910 by George Niedeckian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The next major addition to the Meyer May house happened in 1922. After being widowed in 1917 after the death of Sophia May from influenza, Meyer May married Rae Stern in 1921. In order to accommodate the newly expanded family, Osgood & Osgood was hired to build a new addition to the home which included two bedrooms and a servant\u2019s quarters, among other spaces. Meyer May lived in the house until his death on November 6, 1936. The Helmer family bought the home in 1942, with the house shortly changing hands to the Newcomb family in 1945. Over the next 40 years, the Newcombs would add a car port and apartment entrances, with the 1922 addition eventually being rented out as apartments in 1965. In 1985, the house was finally sold to Steelcase, the current owners of the Meyer May House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steelcase had actually worked with Frank Lloyd Wright in the past, specifically on the S.C Johnson and Son Administration Building in 1936. One particularly important individual in this regard is David Hunting Sr., a secretary and partial owner of Steelcase. Hunting worked closely with Frank Lloyd Wright during the design of the administration building<\/a>. This experience left enough of an impression on Hunting for him to suggest to Robert C. Pew, then chairman of Steelcase, that Steelcase should restore the Meyer May House, prompting the company to purchase the house for this purpose in 1985. In The Restoring of a Vision<\/em>, Carla Lind, the project director for the restoration, says that the goal of the restoration was to return the house to the state it was in during 1910-11, when the house was first built.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The restoration of the Meyer May House involved extensive research on the building. One such avenue of research includes interviewing the children of Meyer May, with Steelcase being allowed to consult family photos in order to get the details of the interior spaces right. Steelcase also consulted the archives of the Milwaukee Art Museum in order to gain more information on the house, particularly regarding the inner furnishings of the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One notable challenge in restoring the house came from the fact that Wright\u2019s designs often extended beyond the structure of the house itself. According to The Renewing of a Vision,<\/em> \u201cWhen given the opportunity, Frank Lloyd Wright designed much more than the house itself. Everything, from table clothes, to furniture, to carpet patterns, to light fixtures, to glazing patterns in windows, to the color of the mortar between the bricks. Everything was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and his associates to be a part of a total vision.\u201d<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to truly represent Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s vision for the house, the restoration team had to meticulously restore the inside of the house. One example of this effort can be seen in the furniture. The restoration team was able to track down a significant number of the original furniture pieces, which they then restored. What they were unable to find was recreated from sketches from the Milwaukee Art Museum archives. This effort even went to the lengths of commissioning a custom fabric run in order to get the correct upholstery for the chairs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The restoration of the house required some major structural changes to the building. One of the first changes made to the house was the removal of the 1922 addition of the house, due to the fact that it was not part of Frank Lloyd Wright\u2019s original vision for the house. While the addition itself is gone, not all traces have vanished from the house; the addition used much of the same materials as the original house, leading the restoration team to carefully dismantle the addition to create a stockpile of resources for the restoration effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The roof of the house also required significant work. One major flaw with the original design of the house was that the roof was prone to leaks. This is largely due to the fact that the main material the Wright had available to him, wood, was unable to support the weight of the roof. This was a recurring problem with Wright\u2019s designs, with Wright himself remarking, \u201cyou really couldn\u2019t trust an architect whose roofs didn\u2019t leak, because it meant that they weren’t being very creative<\/a>\u201d. In order to rectify this, a steel skeleton was installed that better supported the weight of the roof. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For readers interested in learning more about the Meyer May House, Steelcase has produced \u201cThe Renewing of a Vision\u201d, a documentary covering the restoration process of the Meyer May House. The entire documentary is available for free online and can be found on the Meyer May House website here<\/a>. The Meyer May House also offers free public tours in which visitors will watch the documentary and then be taken around the inside of the house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arguably one of the most recognizable historical landmarks of the city of Grand Rapids, the Meyer May House, has recently been the subject of concerns regarding its ongoing preservation. This is due to the fact that the HNI Corporation, an Iowa based furniture company, announced on August 4, 2025 that they were entering an agreement […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":234,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,9,5],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-grand-rapids","tag-history","tag-the-rapidian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forestphotographer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}