HESS & RASEMAN (fl. 1885-1899), architects of Detroit, Mich. are recorded as the designers of an elaborate High Victorian-styled mansion located in STRATHROY. ONT. and built for Mathew Bixel, a wealthy brewer, in 1889. This project, originally costing in excess of $10,000, was cited in a list of contracts awarded to architects from the American Midwest and published in the New York City weekly journal called The Engineering & Building Record, Vol. xx, 5 October 1889, p. 266. Completed in early 1890, the mansion is located at Kittridge Avenue at Caradoc Street North in Strathroy, and is still standing today in 2014 (inf. Chris Harrington, Strathroy Public Library).
Bixel, a native of Germany, likely knew Julius Hess (1841-1899), who was a native of Switzerland, born in the German-speaking area of that country in 1841. He emigrated to the United States before 1861 and served with the Army during the American Civil War. He later moved to Detroit in 1872 or 1873, and was active there from 1875 onward. In 1885 Hess formed a partnership with Richard E. Raseman (1855-1944), another German-American architect. Their collaboration ended in 1891, and both architects continued to work under their own names. Hess died in Detroit on 18 July 1899 at the age of 58 years (obit. with port. Detroit Free Press, 20 July 1899, 10; 23 July 1899, 9). His business partner Richard Raseman continued to practise in that city until after 1930. Raseman died in Detroit on 13 January 1944 (obit. The National Architect [Detroit], June 1944; biog. in H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects, 1956, 497).
In Detroit, Hess is best know for his design of the Grand Army of the Republic [GAR] Building, Grand River Avenue near Cass Avenue, 1896-1900 (K. Eckert, Buildings of Michigan, 1993, 73), and for his impressive Renaissance Revival reconstruction of First Presbyterian Church, North Washington Street at Emmet Street, 1898-99 (K. Eckert, Buildings of Michigan, 1993, 152, illus.). Raseman is credited with the monumental Beaux-Arts design of the Harmonie Club, East Grand Avenue at Center Street, Detroit, 1894-95 (K. Eckert, Buildings of Michigan, 1993, 77).