The fight over rebuilding Holly, Michigan's fire-scarred, National Register-listed Holly Hotel has taken another sharp turn, with a defense attorney now asking that the judge overseeing the case be removed entirely. A hearing on the motion is scheduled for today at 1:30 p.m., just as the long-running property dispute appeared to be inching toward resolution.
Attorney Alexander Reuter, who represents Jeremiah Roberts, filed a motion seeking the disqualification of Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Jacob Cunningham from the case, according to The Oakland Press. Reuter is asking that Cunningham be disqualified and that the case be reassigned or transferred to a different judge, arguing the judge showed bias and a lack of impartiality during a July 20 settlement hearing.
The underlying dispute traces back to a devastating fire that tore through downtown Holly in June 2022, starting near the adjacent Battle Alley Arcade Antiques. Crews from 18 surrounding fire departments used more than one million gallons of water to contain the blaze, which left the entire Holly Hotel with severe smoke and water damage while a third of the structure itself burned, according to ClickOnDetroit.
A Century-Old Building With a History of Surviving Fire
The Queen Anne-style hotel, built in 1891, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and had already survived two prior major fires, in 1913 and 1978, before hosting then-President George H.W. Bush during a 1992 campaign visit, per FOX 2 Detroit. It has long stood as one of Oakland County's most recognized landmarks.
Rebuilding stalled almost immediately after the 2022 fire when Roberts, who purchased the adjacent vacant lot in early 2023, alleged that the hotel's 1891 footprint extended six inches onto his land and that its roof eaves overhung his property by 14 inches. Roberts blocked repair crews from using his lot, while hotel owners Krissy and George Kutlenios maintained the building had occupied the exact same footprint since it was constructed, according to the same FOX 2 Detroit report. The Kutlenioses sued Roberts over the boundary dispute in August 2023.
Settlement Talks Collapse Amid Coercion Claims
The case has since dragged through three mediators, multiple status conferences, and a bench trial that ran two-and-a-half days before both sides told the court a settlement was in place, only to find they could not finalize its language. Cunningham presided over at least 27 motions in the case, along with three status conferences and one settlement conference, per court filings referenced in the Oakland Press report.
At the center of the disqualification motion is what happened during the July 20 settlement hearing. Reuter claims Cunningham made statements indicating bias and applied coercive pressure during settlement discussions, and that the judge showed personal bias against Roberts. Reuter also said the parties could not reach an agreement because an engineering report on shifting a hotel wall, tied to how the building's foundation would need to be moved along with it, was not yet available.
Roberts himself said he felt coerced by Cunningham to accept the settlement agreement and that he felt he had no choice regarding its terms. He also said he feared being unfairly judged at a bench trial because he had rejected the judge's settlement suggestions. Reuter separately claimed Cunningham believed Roberts and his counsel were being unreasonable for rejecting suggested contingency language, and said the judge voiced frustration at Reuter for failing to include that contingency language in the settlement draft.
Cunningham, for his part, told the courtroom that something might be happening behind the scenes between the parties. At the July 20 hearing, he gave both sides two options: agree on a retrial date or reach an agreement that same afternoon. He said his first available retrial date was in December, and a retrial is now scheduled for that month if the case does not settle.
Plaintiffs' Attorney Pushes Back on Bias Claims
Julie Fershtman, who represents Krissy and George Kutlenios, wrote that Roberts had not shown the specific facts required for judicial disqualification, responding that the motion did not establish evidence of judicial bias or impartiality. Under Michigan Court Rule 2.003, a judge may be disqualified only upon a showing of personal bias, an objective risk of actual bias affecting due process, or a failure to meet appearance-of-impropriety standards under Canon 2 of the Michigan Code of Judicial Conduct, according to the State Bar of Michigan.
Cunningham was elected to the Oakland County Circuit Court bench in November 2018 and took office in 2019, becoming the court's first openly LGBTQ+ judge, according to Detroit Legal News. He previously served in the family division before handling high-profile civil matters like this one.
A Landmark Left in Limbo
The financial toll of the standoff has been steep. Facing two years of halted construction and unresolved litigation, the Kutlenioses listed the hotel property for sale in September 2024 at an asking price of $899,000, with the listing noting that the damaged west wall would need to be restored before any sale could close, per WHMI.
Nearby, recovery from the same 2022 fire has moved forward. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced a $433,770 state Revitalization and Placemaking grant in May 2025 to support the $1.35 million rebuilding of Andy's Place, a Broad Street restaurant destroyed in the same blaze, according to ClickOnDetroit — a contrast that underscores how far behind the hotel's restoration remains.
Even with the building's future uncertain, the owners have tried to keep it part of the community. In January, the hotel temporarily reopened its stripped-down bar turret to host a live music video recording session called Echoes in the Iron, bringing local musicians into the historic space while the rest of the building sat unused, per WHMI. That same month, reporting revealed a key sticking point in earlier settlement talks: Roberts' demand that a specific deposition be excluded from the case's confidentiality terms, something the Kutlenioses had sought to keep sealed along with all other depositions.
With the disqualification hearing set for Wednesday and a potential retrial looming in December, the case shows no sign of resolving quickly. For a building that has already outlasted two earlier fires and a presidential visit, the current fight over six inches of land and 14 inches of roofline has now stretched well past the four-year mark.
