Palmer Woods

The Palmer Woods Historic District is a residential historic district bounded by Seven Mile Road, Woodward Avenue, and Strathcona Drive in Detroit, Michigan. There are approximately 289 homes in the 188-acre (0.76 km²) district, which is between the City of Highland Park in Wayne County and the City of Ferndale in Oakland County. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The Detroit Golf Club is nearby.

As of 2015 many of the wealthiest professionals in the City of Detroit live in Palmer Woods.

History

The Palmer Woods Historic District is named after Thomas W. Palmer, a prominent citizen of nineteenth-century Detroit and a United States Senator. Palmer's estate included land on both sides of Woodward Avenue, stretching from Six Mile Road to Eight Mile Road. During his lifetime, Palmer donated some of his land to the city of Detroit to establish Palmer Park, and gave additional land to the state of Michigan to build the Michigan State Fairgrounds.

Palmer died in 1913; two years later, Detroit real-estate developer Charles W. Burton purchased the section of Palmer's estate that now encompasses the Palmer Woods Historic District. Burton envisioned an exclusive neighborhood, catering to Detroit's richest citizens, with room for spacious and elegant homes. He hired the landscape architect Ossian Cole Simonds to design the layout of the development. Cole laid out a subdivision with gently curving streets, capitalizing on the natural beauty of the area and creating a parklike atmosphere in the neighborhood. Curbs are nonexistent, minimizing the transition from street to lawn and discouraging pedestrian traffic, and every lot in the neighborhood had a unique shape. The neighborhood received the Michigan Horticultural Society's Award of Merit in 1938 for being the finest platted subdivision in Michigan.