WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2022  –  7:15 a.m.

These names might ring a bell: Berkey, Davis, Gay, Gunn, Haldene, Phoenix, Sligh, Stickley, Stowe, Welch, Widdicomb. Starting line for the Creston Polar Bears? No. Some of the great Grand Rapids woodworking factories in the last two centuries. They made Grand Rapids known as “The Furniture City”. Where you have exquisite woodworking, you need majestic mansions to house the capitalists who crafted the elegant furniture. Exquisite homes sprang up from the Grand River to the top of the hill at College and Union Avenues. Two World Wars and a deadly depression turned this panache into dumps, inhospitable living areas and squalid residential quarters. Then came the City Hall “planners.” These questionable types decided to tear down all the beautiful but neglected homes from the River to the Hill and replace them with structures resembling mobile homes, and Ionia Reformatory barracks. Might even last maybe 15-29 years. They called the proposal “College Park.” Oh, and let’s not forget our federal government, under the cloak and dagger of the FHA policies. It got so bad that you could get a mortgage on a Kentwood garage faster and easier than a beautiful, built for the ages home in what came to be known as the Heritage Hill District.

Neighbors, sick of the City-State-Federal yawning and do-nothing approach, got certified as a Historic District that put the kabosh on any exterior changes in a residential dwelling located in the Historic District. The chief architect, Barbara Roelofs, is our speaker this week. Known nationally for her architectural, historical and preservation knowledge and efforts, Ms. Roelofs is still in demand as a speaker and lecturer addressing potential historic districts, and even governmental agencies. This is the 50th Anniversary of the Heritage Hill Association, which she co-founded, and we have asked her to tell us about the wonderful homes on this year’s fund raiser: the Heritage Hill Tour.               

Invocator: Mr. Eric Nelson
Introducer: James Booth Burr, Jr., Esq.

History:               

(1) An account mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.  ~Ambrose Bierce

(2) On the whole history tends to be rather poor fiction – except at its best.   ~Gore Vidal

(3) History would be a wonderful thing – if it were only true.   ~Leo Tolstoy