Cappon House Museum

Dutch immigrant architect Jan R. Kleyn designed this Italianate style house for Holland's first mayor and tannery owner, Isaac Cappon, and his large family. Owned by the Cappons from 1873 until 1980, the house's stately interiors are furnished with one of the country's largest collections of early Grand Rapids furniture in its original setting. The house was comprehensively restored in 2000 - 2004 including the reproduction of original wallpapers, floor coverings and silk upholstery material.

House museums have a special power to rivet a visitor's attention and engage his or her imagination. This is a wonderful power ... It stems in great measure from the perceived authenticity of what is seen at these sites; in their landscapes, structures and collections. The clarity with which the issue of authenticity is handled, both in interpretation and in fact, is therefore a major issue.

The Cappon House, built in 1873-74, is one of the earliest intact house museums in Western Michigan. Because it remained in one family until purchased by the City of Holland in 1980, it contains a nearly complete household of furniture purchased by the family between 1873 and 1900 greatly enhancing its local, regional and even national import.

The Cappon collection is nationally significant as one of the largest known collections of labeled and attributed early Grand Rapids furniture in its original setting, and is important for understanding the American Victorian culture that produced it, and the Dutch immigrant family who purchased it.
The Cappon House reflects the lives of the Dutch immigrants who "made it" in the new world. Isaac Cappon and Catarina DeBoe Cappon were both immigrants from the Province of Zeeland, Netherlands in the late 1840s. They met and were married soon after immigrating and had eleven children.

In the 1850s, Cappon worked for regional leather tanneries where he became acquainted with his life-long business partner John Bertsch. The two founded the Cappon and Bertsch Leather Co., which became successful in the 1860s due, in part, to Civil War contracts.

Catarina reportly fell ill around the time of her 50th birthday. She went to bed and did not leave her room until she died two years later in 1887. Isaac later married his housekeeper Jacoba De Kok, in late 1891. Together the two had five children.

The Cappons built an Italianate-style residence of wood in Holland, Michigan in 1873-74 following the catastrophic Holland fire of 1871, which destroyed most of the town. When completed, the house was considered the finest residence in southwestern Ottawa County. Much of the furniture and the interior woodwork was produced by the Grand Rapids furniture industry when it was first capturing the nation's attention in the mid-1870s.

Designs for exterior and interior decorative woodwork came from Cummings and Miller's Architecture of 1868. The spectacular black walnut and ash Renaissance Revival interior woodwork was made locally by the Holland factory of H. W. Verbeek &Co.

Explore Related Categories