Preservation Case Study:
Belle Isle
Detroit, Michigan
In 1870 the former frontier outpost of Detroit was fast becoming a major city. Its citizens, then numbering almost 80,000, clamored for the amenity that would place it among other forward-looking communities: a public park. For this purpose, the city bought Belle Isle—600 acres of wetland forest on an island in the Detroit River—and in 1882 engaged Frederick Law Olmsted to create a plan for it. At the time, Olmsted’s parks were transforming cities across the nation, providing millions of people with scenery that would give them opportunities, in the words of LALH author Charles C. McLaughlin, “to escape the narrowing effects of selfish interests and enable them to gratify, exercise, and educate aesthetic faculties.”
Olmsted expressed these same sentiments in his 1883 report for Belle Isle, noting that the value of a park “lies in its power to divert men from unwholesome, vicious, and destructive methods and habits of seeking recreation, and inducing them to educate themselves.” Olmsted’s scheme was straightforward and grand. It left intact most of the old forest on the east end of the island and introduced a central boulevard near the bridge that connected the island to the city. Olmsted’s plan also included a canal system, parade ground, and ferry dock with an elaborate Shingle Style shelter.
From the start, the famous landscape architect felt undermined by city officials who were unwilling to appropriate reasonable funds for the park, and he resigned in 1885. The boulevard, parade ground, and ferry pavilion and landing were built according to Olmsted’s design, but his elaborate canal system was simplified, and other elements of his scheme were abandoned entirely. However, Olmsted’s visionary plan whetted the city’s appetite for a park.
From 1884 through 1908 Belle Isle saw ambitious development of roads, bridges, lakes, shelters, and plantings. New structures accommodated activities such as boating, skating, swimming, and horseback riding, and Detroiters flocked to the park. Albert Kahn designed a large conservatory (constructed from wood salvaged from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair), an aquarium, and dairy barns. Building continued into the 1920s, as the city’s population more than tripled. In 1923 the architect Cass Gilbert won a national competition for a new fountain to be funded by the fortunes of a local businessman. (Made of Vermont marble and measuring more than 100 feet in diameter, the James Scott Fountain was renovated in the 1980s.) Landfill eventually expanded the island to 982 acres.
Over the next forty years, residents loved Belle Isle almost to death. Traffic congestion, water pollution, and flooding worsened as drainage canals were filled and sensitive wetlands were paved over. Wakes from the river’s shipping lanes pummeled the shoreline. By the early 1970s the maintenance staff was literally swamped. Mounting concerns about the park’s future sparked the formation of the Friends of Belle Isle, which secured the park’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1976 the Friends commissioned a master plan for preservation from the landscape architecture firm Kiley, Tyndall, Walker, of which minor elements were adopted.
But even as canals and some structures were being restored, Grand Prix auto racing came to Belle Isle, and the acres of pavement grew. In 1995 a sweeping new master plan was begun, based on extensive surveys, inventories, and community interviews. Five years later the Detroit design and engineering firm Hamilton Anderson Associates unveiled a fifteen-year, $180-million plan, which the city has yet to formally adopt. Park supporters, however, are optimistic. Friends member Janet Anderson, who wrote a book about the park’s history, says that now even piecemeal projects follow the plan’s recommendations.
Meanwhile, many significant structures remain at risk, including the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory, which needs a complete restoration. All agree that the key to reviving the park, whose attendance has dropped, is convincing residents to regularly visit again. LALH board president John Franklin Miller, also the president of the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in neighboring Grosse Pointe Shores, says the park, especially the conservatory, is one of Detroit’s undervalued assets—“I’m committed to getting people to appreciate it.”
(Read more about the roots of Frederick Law Olmsted’s democratic ideals and park making in Charles C. McLaughlin’s new introduction to Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England.)
Photo credits:
Visitors strolling at Belle Isle. Courtesy Detroit Recreation Department
Historic photograph, swimmers at Belle Isle. Courtesy Hamilton Anderson
Associates
Flooding at Belle Isle. Courtesy Detroit Recreation Department
Historic photograph, swimmers at Belle Isle. Courtesy Hamilton Anderson
Associates
Landscape Stewardship and Preservation Online page