What Detroit house served as Motown's first headquarters and studio?

The Detroit house that served as Motown’s first headquarters and studio was Hitsville U.S.A. Located at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, it became the physical birthplace of the Motown sound.

Berry Gordy bought the property in 1959, when he formed Tamla Records. The building had previously housed a photography studio, but its rear space was converted into a small recording room called Studio A. The Gordy family lived upstairs while the ground floor contained offices, a tape library, a control room and the studio. At one point, the studio operated 22 hours a day, closing only for morning maintenance.

As Motown grew, the company acquired neighboring houses for publishing, finance, administration and artist-related work. The original building remained central to the label’s Detroit era, when artists such as the Supremes, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder recorded music with the Funk Brothers. Motown moved its headquarters to Los Angeles in 1972.

The Hitsville building is now part of the Motown Museum, which preserves Studio A, period artifacts and Berry Gordy’s upstairs apartment. Sun Studio, Muscle Shoals and Electric Lady Studios are important recording sites, but none was Motown’s first Detroit headquarters.