Palmer Park Apartment Building Historic District

The Palmer Park Apartment Buildings Historic District is architecturally significant as Michigan's most extraordinary community of multi-family dwelling types. The buildings are individually significant as some of the finest and most varied examples of apartment building design in Michigan, if not the midwest, and together form a unique exemplar of the development of this building type from 1925 to 1963. In addition, Palmer Park is noteworthy as an example of a planned community incorporating a suburban concept of living in a high density urban environment. It is also important for its associations with the lives of prominent Detroit residents of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Architecturally, the Palmer Park District contains an extraordinary collection of superbly designed, detailed and constructed buildings representative of a wide range of twentieth century architectural trends executed by some of Michigan's most talented architects. Albert Kahn, William Kapp, Smith Hinchman and Grylls, Talmadge Hughes, Robert West and Wirt Rowland understood Detroit's need to show its prosperity and character. They seized the best design ideas of their period and used them to create visually striking compositions. Palmer Park contains among the finest and last surviving examples of some of these architects' work. The best apartment architecture, especially from the 1920s and 1930s period, in Michigan can be found in Palmer Park: Palmer Park is significant as an example of a unique planned community that attempted to incorporate the need for high density urban living with the American aspiration for the suburban life style. In the 1920s, Detroit was a boom town. The manufacturing and auto companies were riding the crest of American prosperity. Palmer Park was born of a need to escape the city and live peacefully in the quiet clean air of the country. Even though the city now surrounds the area, the Park has maintained its country atmosphere. At one time, several of Detroit's finest streets--Grand Boulevard, Dexter Boulevard, Linwood and East Jefferson Avenue--were redeveloped with the intention of accomplishing the same goal. Probably because of their crowded unbounded linear nature, none of these areas were as successful as self-contained, campus-like Palmer Park with its spacious landscaped grounds and curving streets. While these others are now blighted and have been partially razed, Palmer Park has remained a viable and desirable residential area that is now enjoying a great resurgence in popularity.

The Palmer Park Apartment Buildings Historic District is located on the west side of Woodward Avenue about seven miles northwest of downtown Detroit. This part of Detroit was not settled until the 1920s and is primarily a middle class residential area of single family houses with strip commercial development along Woodward Avenue and the major neighborhood streets. Palmer Park is a community of 63 buildings. There are four religious institutions, 1 warehouse (originally a parking garage), 2 two-family flats, and 56 apartment buildings. The community is laid out on pleasantly curving streets bordering Palmer Park, a public park. Three wide plazas formed by the crossing of major streets provide focal points within the district at the intersections of Whitmore and Manderson, Whitmore and Alwyne, and Whitmore and Merton Road. Although little parking was originally provided for the buildings, today several surface lots and vacant lots form visual breaks in the streetscapes. To the south, the district is bordered by McNichols Road (also known as Six Mile Road), which is lined with generally undistinguished commercial strip development dating from the 1920s and later, including several bars, restaurants, gas stations, doctors' offices, and a church. Some of these buildings have flats above the stores. On the west, the district is bordered by large single family houses dating from the 1920s and after. These line both sides of Pontchartrain Boulevard and extend west to surround the Detroit Golf Club forming an exclusive upper-middle class residential area. On the north and east the district is bounded by Palmer Park a large, wooded, city park with recreation facilities. The buildings in the district are of brick with either terra cotta, cast concrete or stone trim. Although of mixed heights, they are mostly four stories tall, with some two-story and townhouse units. On the whole, the buildings are marked by fine craftsmanship and a high level of design. A large portion of the buildings date from the 1925 to 1929 period; another significant group from 1935 to 1940 and a third group dating from 1945 to 1955 with a sprinkling of structures from the early 1960s. Buildings of different periods and types are mixed throughout the area affording richly varied streetscapes of contrasting architectural styles. Generally the buildings are set back from the streets varying distances behind well landscaped lawns and planting beds of mature shrubbery. Stylistically, the buildings range from a variety of historical revival styles including Colonial Revival, Venetian, Spanish, Mediterranean, Tudor and Beaux Arts influenced classical, through most phases of the modern movement including the International Style, Art Deco, Art Moderne and the 1950s and 1960s modern styles. They also exhibit a full range of multi-family dwelling types and concepts ranging from townhouses to duplex flats, although the majority of the buildings contain typical, one-level, apartments ranging in size from studios to four bedrooms. The structures were intended for a variety of tenant types and income levels and range from large, luxury units with elaborate interior finishes, fireplaces and servants quarters to Spartan one-room efficiencies. For the most part, they are well maintained and unaltered.