Marvin Gaye House

There’s a strong case that this ranch house on Outer Drive is the most important address in Motown history that isn’t Hitsville — because this is where Marvin Gaye dreamed up What’s Going On. Fun twist: it was Berry Gordy’s own home first, until Gordy gifted it in 1967 to his sister Anna and her husband — Marvin Gaye — and moved to Gordy Manor on West Boston.

Holed up here in 1970, grieving the death of duet partner Tammi Terrell and weary of Motown’s hitmaking formula, Gaye reinvented himself. In the home’s “black room” (named for its black velvet walls), he sat at the piano and taught the new anti-war song to friends — among them Detroit Lions stars Lem Barney and Mel Farr, who’d wandered into Gaye’s orbit and ended up singing the background voices you hear on the record. A modest house with a sunken living room and a baby grand, where one of the greatest albums ever made was born. Someone lives there now — so admire it knowing what happened inside.