[4] Using this experience, he later organized the Peninsular Car Company (with Charles Lang Freer, whose home is next to Hecker's) in Detroit, making his fortune in the railroad supply business.

[4] This service brought him to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1904 appointed Hecker to the Panama Canal Commission.

The house, with 21,000 square feet (1,951 m2), is an imposing example of French Châteauesque style based on the Château de Chenonceaux near Tours, France.

[4] Hecker used his home to host elaborate parties, whose guests included presidents William McKinley and Rutherford B.

[4] The exterior of the home has large towers at the corners, and Flemish dormers in the steep hip roof.

[6] For the next twenty years, the home was owned by the Hecker family, but it operated as a boarding house for single college students.