GRAND RAPIDS TOWNSHIP, MI – A.J. Birkbeck says the 4.2 acre estate he is selling at 2093 Robinson Road SE offers “proximity and privacy.”

Located just eight minutes from downtown Grand Rapids, the mansion near Fisk Lake and Aquinas College is hidden from street views by trees and a long driveway that winds past a pond in front of the home.

Built in 1927 and largely unchanged since then, the 35-room white brick residence also is loaded with history and elegance.

“Everyone that has owned the house has felt they were stewards of the house,” says Birkbeck, who has listed the property for $1.58 million with Grand Rapids Realty. “It’s very fortunate. This house has so much that’s original.”

Built by Louis A. Cornelius, the founder of Wolverine Brass Co., the home still has most of its original brass lighting fixtures. As testimony to its founder’s ties to the plumbing industry, the house has 12 bathrooms.

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Cornelius, who started Wolverine Brass in 1896, was at the top of the plumbing supply world and spared no detail in building his showcase mansion on the edge of the city’s eastern borders.

Many of those details – such as quarter-sawn oak parquet floors, hand-carved woodwork and marble fireplaces – still remain. So does the pine paneling from the King’s Forest in England that lines the office where Birkbeck maintains his law practice.

Despite its size, Birkbeck said the house is not out of scale for their family.

“It really is a functional home, every single room in this house gets used.”

While home’s accoutrements are cozy, the home’s core is based on a steel I-beam construction that was erected by commercial construction company, says Birkbeck, who has retained a copy of the original building plans.

“That’s why it took three years to build,” says Birkbeck. “It took a year just to build out the shell.”

During their 12 years of ownership, the Birkbecks have lovingly preserved the house’s historic character while adding modern touches such as a new roof, a new boiler and central air conditioning and new heating for the swimming pool and cabana.

The Birkbecks also have carved a large modern kitchen out of four smaller rooms on the north wing of the house that once included a pantry, a servants’ dining room and servants’ living room.

Despite the expansion and updated appliances, the Birkbecks kept the modernistic metal cabinets that were installed in the 1970s. Although it no longer is operable, they also kept the old incinerator chute mounted in the kitchen wall.

Katherine Birkbeck has used her green thumb to spruce up the gardens around the house. They also added a solarium next to the greenhouse and potting room located in the east wing of the home.

A.J. Birkbeck, an environmental lawyer, who said his growing business in Chicago is prompting a shift to a smaller home in East Grand Rapids area, where his parents live.

Although the home is in the highly rated East Grand Rapids School District, Birkbeck notes the house is located inside Grand Rapids Township, where property taxes are lower.

While Birkbeck is fond of the house’s location and features, he’s also fond of sharing the stories behind the home’s past owners.

He points out the small room with Dutch doors where Louis Cornelius kept his liquor. It was easy to lock up when his wife had her teetotaling friends from the Christian Temperance Union over for tea, he says.

The late U.S. Rep. Harold Sawyer and his late wife, Marcia, built a house on part of the original grounds after they were married in 1947, he says. Marcia Sawyer, nee Steketee, was the granddaughter of Louis Cornelius.

Over the years, the estate became famous, if not notorious, for hosting some of the grandest parties in West Michigan, Birkbeck says.

“This place was made for entertaining,” he says.

During the 1930s, the basement recreation contained a stage on which vaudeville acts who visited the opera houses on Reeds Lake were invited.

“Supposedly, Duke Ellington played down here,” Birkbeck says.

Oil man Charles Smith, who owned the estate from 1953 until 1979, once hosted a party that featured a fleet of antique cars brought in for the guests, all of whom were dressed in period costumes, Birkbeck said.

When their son joined the swim team, the Smiths also added the swimming pool and pool house. They also converted the card and smoking room above the carriage house into an apartment which still retains its 1950-style appliances and decor.

From 1984 until 1994, the home was owned by Hollis M. Baker, chairman of Baker Furniture Co. In a closet next to the basement exercise room, Birkbeck points out a series of bullet holes created by Baker’s use of the room as a shooting gallery.

For 16 months, from 1994 through 1995, the home was owned by retired banker David Frey and his wife, Judy Frey, who later served as mayor of East Grand Rapids from 1999 through 2003.

However, the Freys never moved in and sold the house in 1996 to Jim and Leslie Murray, an artist best known for her “Murray’s Law” comic strip and line of greeting cards.

During their five years of ownership, the Murrays removed a mahogany floor in the front hall and elevator vestibule and replaced with a black and white polished marble floor.

Birkbeck, who bought the house 12 years ago for $1.03 million, said he has enjoyed maintaining and upgrading the home and its systems.

E-mail Jim Harger: jharger@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/JHHarger