Detroit Yacht Club

The Detroit Yacht Club's clubhouse and associated island were constructed in 1921-23 and dedicated on May 30, 1923. The club, listed as the twelfth oldest yacht club in the nation, was founded in 1868. Its clubhouse was built during the heyday of social clubs in Detroit in the 1910s and 20s at a time when the city experienced explosive growth due primarily to the rapid expansion of the city's automobile industry. The Detroit Yacht Club itself grew rapidly during the 1910s, and construction of this new building in the early 1920s reflected the club's growing size and importance as one of the city's leading social organizations.

The Detroit Yacht Club meets national register criterion A under Social History as the home of an old Detroit organization that was at the time and remains today one of the city's and region's leading social clubs. It also meets criterion A under Recreation for the club's position as a central figure in power boat racing through its frequent hosting of American Power Boat Association Challenge Cup ('Gold Cup') races that began in the 1910s and continues today and under criterion B through its association with early powerboating champion Garfield A. ('Gar') Wood. Wood, who served as the club's Commodore during the time its clubhouse was built, raised the club from a major force on the Great Lakes to world recognition through his Gold Cup and other victories under the club's burgee. In addition, the club meets national register criterion C for its architecturally distinguished clubhouse building, notable as an outstanding example both of 'Mediterranean' architecture in the Detroit context and of the broader social clubhouse genre of buildings from the early twentieth century.

The Detroit Yacht Club is a broad and low Mediterranean building sited on an eleven-acre man-made island adjacent to the north side of Belle Isle, a two mile long island in the Detroit River that forms a Detroit city park. The rambling, predominantly two and three-story building displays dark red brick lower walls and white stuccoed upper facades and hip roofs clad in red glazed clay tile. A hip-roof square-plan tower, rising more than a story above the adjoining roof ridges, dominates the approximate midpoint of the building's length. The very broadly V-shaped island also contains tree-shaded parking lots, outdoor swimming pool and tennis courts, and extensive lawn areas and is largely outlined by boat slips and docks.