One good building: NW Detroit community house gets an upgrade

North Rosedale Park Community House

• Scarsdale Street

Address : 18445 Scarsdale St., Detroit

History : Opened in 1939 to replace a small 1924 clubhouse.

Show and tell : Do you have a favorite community-owned “third space” in Detroit? Tell us about it: Email Sarah Hulett at shulett@outliermedia.org .

You could say the North Rosedale Park Community House is the neighborhood’s confidence and tenacity made manifest. The resident-owned gathering place — home to eight decades of meetings, plays and parties — hosted an open house over the weekend to show off its latest round of renovations.

The North Rosedale Park Civic Association (NRPCA) incorporated in 1924 as an all-male, all-white organization. The association planned to build a school to keep the neighborhood’s children from having to cross Grand River Avenue. City Councilman John Hall took umbrage at the time: “Detroit has a slogan — a seat for every child — but that bunch in the northwest demands a school for every child.” Another top priority? Building a clubhouse.

The neighborhood’s first clubhouse was built in 1924 on what was then a thickly wooded seven-acre lot near Southfield Road and Grand River Avenue. In her book “North Rosedale Park: One Hundred Years of History,” Rose Love described it as a grassroots volunteer effort. “Every man and boy brought a couple of hammers, but squares, levels, and good sharp saws were hard to find,” she quotes from a 1940 issue of the Rosedale Tattler, the NRPCA’s newsletter.

The finished clubhouse was a single room with a coal stove at each end. It “became a hub of activity,” Love wrote in her book, and the association later expanded it with a kitchen, dressing rooms and washrooms.

The neighborhood was part of Redford Township at the time. By the next year, residents successfully campaigned for it to be annexed by Detroit.

The NRPCA soon outgrew the modest clubhouse, which hosted more than 200 events a year. It was demolished in 1939 and replaced with the community house, which has a dance hall, stage, kitchen and bathrooms. Marsha Bruhn, who lives in the neighborhood and was the Detroit City Planning Commission director for many years, spearheaded a fundraising campaign in 2012 that ultimately netted $1.9 million to pay for a new commercial kitchen, annex and outdoor plaza, among other amenities.

Despite those improvements, a need for constant upkeep is as much a fact for the community house as any old building. So the NRPCA was thrilled to land a $1 million state allocation last year . An open house last weekend showed off upgrades including new windows and a new ballroom floor. Building manager Tom Ridgway says the association has spent less than $400,000 so far but has a long list of improvements still to make.

“I’m a lifetime resident of North Rosedale Park. I’ve been coming here for my entire life, so to be part of these renovations is just a dream for me,” Ridgway said.

Beverly Frederick is NRPCA’s president. “The North Rosedale Park residents have made a commitment to preserving this space that cultivates connection,” she said. “The key to sustaining it will continue to be our adaptability and responsiveness to the community’s needs.”

One good building: NW Detroit community house gets an upgrade · Outlier Media