Berry Gordy House (The Motown Mansion)

Ten years after Berry Gordy borrowed $800 to start Motown, he bought this — a 10,500-square-foot Italianate mansion in Boston-Edison, complete with a pool house, a solarium with a fountain, and a two-lane bowling alley in the basement. Built in 1917 by a Danish lumber baron named Nels Michelson, it became “Gordy Manor,” and the parties inside genuinely shaped music history: deals got made, careers got launched, and Motown royalty from Smokey to a young Michael Jackson passed through these rooms.

Gordy held onto it long after Motown decamped to Los Angeles, finally selling in 2002 to an owner who poured two years into a meticulous, award-winning restoration. Today it’s lovingly maintained as a private home — occasionally opened for a charity event or two, but not a tourable site — so this is a drive-by-and-admire affair. And what a drive-by: Boston-Edison is one of Detroit’s grandest historic streets, block after block of mansions built by the auto barons. Come for Gordy, stay for the architecture. This is the house Motown money built.