The house at 7200 Detroit Avenue,which today is the Craciun-Berry Funeral Home, had an unusual beginning and an unusual end for the family which first owned and occupied it. Legend has it that, in 1888, the house was given as a wedding present to Louis Patrick Smith and his bride Margaret Farnan by Smith's father, Patrick Smith, a wealthy Irish immigrant who had made his fortune in nineteenth century Cleveland in towing and dredging work on Lake Erie. Almost 90 years after that wedding, and long after the house had been sold out of the Smith family and converted into a funeral home, Louis Patrick Smith, Jr., the last surviving child of Louis Patrick Smith and Margaret Farnan, returned for a final time to the house in which he grew up when, on June 17, 1971, his wake was held at this funeral home.

The wedding of Louis Patrick Smith and Margaret Farnan in January 1888 was a society event in Cleveland that year. Louis was the oldest son of Patrick Smith, who, according to an 1885 article appearing in the Cleveland Leader, was listed among Cleveland's millionaires--a list which included John D. Rockefeller, Mark Hanna, and other nineteenth century Cleveland "captains" of industry. The bride Margaret Farnan also came from a wealthy family. Her grandfather, Walter Farnan, who like Patrick Smith was an immigrant from Ireland, in 1852 founded Farnan Brass Works, the first brass foundry in Cleveland. Perhaps not to be outdone by her new son-in-law's wealthy family, Margaret Farnan's mother Mary, according to County deed records, gave the newly wed couple a part of the Farnan estate located along Detroit Avenue between West 70th and West 73rd Streets, including the land upon which the house at 7200 Detroit Avenue presently stands.

Louis Patrick Smith and Margaret Farnan raised their four children, including Louis Patrick Jr., in the house at 7200 Detroit Avenue. The children grew up and moved from the house, but the house remained the family's home until 1929 when Louis Patrick, who had survived his wife Margaret, died. For a period of time in the 1930s and early 1940s the house served Cuyahoga County as a social services office. However, by the mid 1940s, the house had become vacant, was suffering from deterioration, and was rat-infested. That's when Daniel Berry stepped in and saved the house.

Daniel Berry, born in Cleveland in 1897, was a west side Irish American who became involved in the funeral business in 1918 when a shortage of embalmers' assistants during the great Spanish Flu epidemic steered him to his life-long profession. Thereafter, Berry worked at O'Malley Funeral Home on Detroit Avenue in Cleveland before founding the Berry Funeral Home at 1411 West 65th Street in 1932. The business was so successful that Berry needed a larger facility for his funeral business. In 1947, Berry purchased the Louis Patrick Smith home at 7200 Detroit Avenue, transferring his business to this new location.

In the half-century that followed, three generations of the Berry family worked at the funeral home at 7200 Detroit Road. Over the years, a number of changes were made to the exterior of the Louis Patrick Smith house, including the construction of an addition to the rear of the home, removal of an exterior second floor railing, and the construction of a car port.

In 2001, the Craciun family, descendants of Romanian-American John Craciun, Jr. who had opened historic Craciun Funeral home in the World War II era, acquired ownership of the Berry Funeral Home, changing its name to the Craciun-Berry Funeral Home. In retaining the Berry name after acquiring the home, the Craciun family not only preserved the grand house that has stood at the corner of West 73rd and Detroit Avenue for more than 120 years, but also the name of Daniel Berry, the Irish-American, who first saved the house from likely demolition in the post World War II period.

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The yellow pastel colored, Italianate style house on the corner of W. 73rd Street and Herman Avenue, which in recent years has been restored to its nineteenth century grandeur, was built by a member of the family that pioneered Cleveland's brass industry. Cleveland's first brass foundry was built in 1852 on Center Street (located in the East Bank of the Flats) by Irish immigrant Walter Farnan. The business quickly flourished as brass was a important metal alloy used in many products manufactured in the nineteenth century. It was especially critical in the construction of municipal water works systems, and thus Farnan Brass Works became an early supplier in the 1850s to the Cleveland waterworks system. In 1860, Walter Farnan's oldest son James, now active in the family business, purchased 12 acres of farmland on Detroit Avenue in what was then northern Brooklyn Township. Today it is part of the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood of the west side of Cleveland. According to county tax records, James Farnan, who became owner of Farnan Brass Works upon the death of his father in 1866, built the house which is the subject of this story in 1870. Unfortunately, James did not live long enough to enjoy his grand house. He died from cancer in 1875 at age 44. Mary Farnan, his widow, not only completed the task of raising the couple's four surviving children but, in addition, took over the reins of Farnan Brass Works, running the company for 36 years until her own death in 1911. She was so successful as a business woman that, in 1894, she was able to hire noted local architect W. D. Benes to design an extensive remodeling of her home. The house that brass built was originally located on what is now the northeast corner of W. 70th Street and Detroit Avenue. Several years after Mary Farnan's death, the house was purchased by Thomas "Coal Oil" Masterson, an Irish immigrant, political activist and local entrepreneur, who, in 1917, moved the house to Kilbane Town. Masterson and his family lived in the house on the corner of W. 73rd and Herman for nearly 50 years. It was sold by the family in 1968 shortly after the death of Thomas Masterson's widow, Ida. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, efforts began to be undertaken by concerned citizens to revitalize Cleveland's historic Detroit Shoreway neighborhood, including rehabilitating and restoring many of the historic houses in the neighborhood. Tim and Mimi Elliott, two suburbanites, moved into the neighborhood and began restoring a number of those historic houses.  One of them was the Farnan's Italianate mansion that Coal Oil Masterson had moved to the corner of W. 73rd and Herman. The restoration of that house by the Elliotts took years of patience, hard work and quality craftsmanship.  Today, as a result of their labors, the house that brass built is once again a neighborhood jewel.

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