Historic Rosedale Park in Northwest Detroit is an area with well-maintained homes and green space. But it’s a lot more than that. The community was a blueprint for high-quality middle-class housing, says Cheryl V. Davis, managing broker at Robinson Realty & Management Group, as well as a local homeowner.
Before Rosedale Park (and decades before Levittowns became synonymous with middle-class homeownership), owning a home was largely restricted to the wealthy, Davis says.
Auto Industry Drove Housing Demand
Rosedale Park was “a new type of neighborhood, a new level of social and architectural attainment for the average American,” adds Cassandra Talley, principal and co-founder, Loggia Preservation, and a fellow Rosedale Park resident.
The community's story begins in 1916. Detroit’s auto industry was booming, leading to an influx of new residents from the American South and Europe. Many were enticed by Ford Motor Co.’s January 1914 announcement that it would double workers’ daily wages to five dollars. There wasn’t enough housing to meet the increased demand, Talley says. “People lived right near their place of work because, in the 1910s, you likely didn't own a car. … You might have been living in a duplex or … sharing a house with another family. And often there were no yards.”
Enter the Rosedale Park Land Development Co., which bought land just south of the streetcar line on Grand River Avenue. The company created a subdivision with tree-lined streets, sidewalks, landscaped medians and buildable lots—then marketed the new neighborhood as offering an easy commute to work, yet without the crowded, polluted conditions of areas around the factories. The company’s slogan for Rosedale was “Out of the smoke zone and into the ozone.”
The marketing worked. The first home was built in 1917, with another 14 constructed by the end of World War I. Development slowed during the Great Depression. Then it boomed beginning in 1934, when the National Housing Act created the Federal Housing Administration, making credit more available. By the 1950s, the neighborhood had grown to about 340 acres and included around 1,500 homes, nearly all detached single-family residences with one to two-and-a-half stories.
When the homes were built, they were “somewhat aspirational,” Talley says. Amenities included indoor plumbing and garages and, sometimes, paneled libraries, fireplaces and slate roofs. “Having a garage was an important piece of having a house in Detroit,” Talley says. Although some residents continued to take the streetcar to work, many owned a car and drove. “Having a place to park was important, to get to your job in the inner city or at one of the manufacturing plants.”
Since homeowners bought lots, they wielded some control over the style of their homes, consulting mass-produced pattern books and house plans and hiring builders. As a result, the neighborhood exhibits a range of architectural styles, including Tudor Revival, Arts and Crafts, Colonial Revival, Cape Cod, International Style, American Foursquare, Prairie and Ranch. The English country aesthetic was dominant, with many Tudor Revivals and street names like Glastonbury and Warwick. Returning soldiers were inspired by the villages they’d seen in Europe, Talley says. “The developers created a neighborhood that had a sense of character and history, even though it was newly built.”
In 1926, the city of Detroit annexed Rosedale Park, bringing water, fire and sewer service. “This infrastructure turned it from a subdivision into a real neighborhood,” Talley says. “Detroit was considered to have some of the very best middle-class housing in the country. … Rosedale Park really stretched people's imaginations because if you were living in a duplex near downtown Detroit, it might never have crossed your mind you could own a quarter of an acre with a stone-faced home with a garage and a garden.”
Community Gains Historic Recognition, Retains Affordability
In 2006, Rosedale Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. One year later, Detroit designated the neighborhood a historic district. Thanks to community pride and preservation efforts, Rosedale Park remains “highly intact, with houses largely unchanged,” Talley says. “This neighborhood is still as cohesive, beautiful and welcoming as it was when it was first developed. … You can see the care and attention to detail people put into maintaining these homes.”
Talley purchased her own home there in 2015. “At the time, I had just started my professional career … and wasn't making much money. I was only pre-approved for $80,000 or $90,000. And that budget didn't go very far in the outer suburbs.” She fell in love with Rosedale Park and was able to buy “the kind of house I didn't think I could buy.”
Although prices have risen, this legacy of affordability remains. The national median existing-home sale price was $434,100 in July, according to National Association of REALTORS® data released in August. The median sale price of homes in Rosedale Park is about $245,000 (versus about $250,000 city-wide), according to August data from Realcomp II Ltd. Rosedale has about a 4.2-month supply of homes (versus about 6.1 months city-wide), with homes on the market for an average of 32 days (versus 42 days city-wide).
Then as now, people have “seen the value and come and stayed,” says Davis, whose Rosedale Park home is nearly 100 years old. “Most of the homes are still owner-occupied and still loved. … This is a stable neighborhood where families can raise their kids, get to know their neighbors and have an impact.”
After the 2008 market crash, Davis says, neighbors worked together to maintain homes that had become unoccupied. “Over the decades, this neighborhood became more than a collection of beautiful homes,” she says. “It became a community defined by connection.”
The Rosedale Park Improvement Association encourages these connections, by organizing events, like the annual picnic in Flintstone Park, Easter egg hunt in Stoepel Park and children’s holiday pancake breakfast around Christmas. The slogan adopted by Rosedale Park and surrounding neighborhoods in 1998, “Small Town Living in a Big City,” is particularly apt.
“Owning a home in Rosedale Park is a source of pride,” says Rose M. Love, who purchased her house in the neighborhood more than 30 years ago. “Constantly, you see people walking around the park, exercising at the park, taking their kids to the park. … There's a commitment to community and working together for the common good. … This is my piece of the American dream.”
