Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

From the record

“The Melvyn Maxwell Smith and Sara Stein Smith House, also known as MyHaven, is a Usonian home that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and constructed in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, in 1949 and 1950. The owners were two public school teachers living on a tight budget.”
Wikipedia article Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 87 National Register listings published here for Oakland County · listed in 1997 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Listed as. Smith, Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein, House - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. 5045 Ponvalley Rd., Bloomfield Township, Pontiac, 48302
When was it listed? March 1997
Category. building
Charter township. Bloomfield charter township
Architect. Frank Lloyd Wright
National Register reference number. 97000283 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

30 since 2018

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 30 fires within 5 miles of Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith House between 2018 and 2019, burning about 30 acres in total. 6 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Equipment and vehicle use	13
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	9
Natural	6
Smoking	2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
6 September 2019	Smoking	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	SOUTHFIELD FD 0010098 - 2019
9 August 2019	Smoking	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	FARMINGTON HILLS FD 0006209 - 2019
8 August 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP FD 0003804 - 2019
21 August 2019	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	SOUTHFIELD FD 0009445 - 2019
11 August 2019	Natural	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	FRANKLIN-BINGHAM FD 0000327 - 2019
7 July 2018	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	SOUTHFIELD FD 0007575 - 2018
27 July 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	SOUTHFIELD FD 0008511 - 2019
27 July 2019	Equipment and vehicle use	1.0 acres	Michigan Department of Natural Resources	WEST BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP FD 0004970 - 2019

Every fire recorded in Oakland County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith House: 2 past producers. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Fire Clay (Refractory). Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Bigelow Clay Prod Co Clay Pit	Fire Clay (Refractory)	Past Producer
	Daniels Clay Pit	Fire Clay (Refractory)	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Oakland County

Storms near this property

9 since 1999

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Pontiac, the town this property stands in, in 9 storm reports between 1999 and 2011: 6 thunderstorm wind, 2 hail, 1 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 2000	Flash Flood	Pontiac	$125,000	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Pontiac	$45,000	no account filed
July 1999	Thunderstorm Wind	Pontiac	$16,000	no account filed
May 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Pontiac	$10,000	A few trees were reported blown down, which took down power lines.
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Pontiac	$10,000	A National Weather Service employee reported numerous large trees down throughout a subdivision near Waterford. A local newspaper confirmed reports of widespread trees down all across Waterford Township. A few homes received minor damages.
April 2001	Thunderstorm Wind	Pontiac	$5,000	Trees limbs were downed, fencing destroyed, and windows of a home were damaged near Elizabeth Lake and Cooley Lake in Waterford.
June 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Pontiac	-	A trained spotter estimated a 60 mph thunderstorm wind gust.
July 2000	Hail	Pontiac	-	no account filed
July 2000	Hail	Pontiac	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Oakland County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Cranbrook House	1.3 miles	1973
Elijah Bull House	1.5 miles	2022
Gregor S. and Elizabeth B. Affleck House	1.9 miles	1985
John & Mary Elizabeth Booth Endicott House	2.0 miles	2008
H. Augustus and Agnes Cleveland O'Dell House-Inch House	2.1 miles	2009
Thomas W. and Margaret Taliaferro House	2.2 miles	2011

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 97000283 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Oakland County	All 87 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.