In 1903, Chace and Emma Newman purchased ten acres of land immediately west of Oakwood. A year later, they platted the southern portion of that property, fronting on Grand River Avenue, as College Heights. While Towar noted the plat as having created “the city’s original skyline drive,” its real legacy lies in how it addressed a significant problem with Oakwood’s street layout.1
As seen in the map here, Oakwood’s Oak Hill Avenue (now often styled “Oakhill Avenue” on city signage and digital maps) was originally designed to follow a curving path at the western edge of that plat, descending from the ridge and heading due south toward Grand River Avenue. However, this failed to account for the steep grade at that point, and the proposed route dropped abruptly into the low, swampy area that would later become Valley Court Park. Though it appeared as a proper city street on maps for almost six decades—including Newman’s 1915 map—it was, in practice, little more than a dirt track, barely usable except by the most adventurous traveler.2
Newman resolved the issue by extending Oak Hill Avenue westward into College Heights, where the street could follow a softer curve and a more gradual descent to Grand River. That extension—now known as Hillcrest Avenue—went through several confusing name changes over the years:
- On the original College Heights plat, the street was labeled Hillside Court.
- By 1915, Oak Hill Avenue and Hillside Court had swapped names. The Oak Hill name was extended south across Grand River, replacing Prospect Street in Brooks’ Addition. Meanwhile, Hillside Court (the former line of Oak Hill and then a secondary path to Grand River) remained unimproved.
- Also in 1915, Newman’s follow-up plat, Bungalow Knolls, added Hickory Court to the north. It connected to Oak Hill via a right-of-way taken from lots 8 and 9 of College Heights.3
- By the time of the 1926 Sanborn map, the Hillcrest Avenue name had been applied.† It formed a continuous drive from Elm Place in Brooks’ Addition north to Wildwood Drive at the edge of Bungalow Knolls. Meanwhile, Hillside Court still appeared on the map—though it was marked as “closed” at its Oak Hill end.4
The descending portion of Hillside Court, unused and inaccessible for years, was officially vacated in 1958. The street has since been redirected to follow the base of the ridge, and now forms the dead-end switchback of Valley Court, providing access to the buildings and parking areas on the north side of the park.5
Newman’s design fix transformed the far western end of Oak Hill Avenue—from what Towar called its “fadeaway termination” into a prominent and desirable address. At 368 Oak Hill, the Newmans built their family home, a design Chace Newman created himself. Their neighbors to the east included Professor Arthur J. Clark—head of the chemistry department, first director of the band, and later a director of the East Lansing State Bank—and Professor Ward Giltner, who would eventually move north into Bungalow Knolls. To the south, past the bend in the drive, lived real estate developers Jacob Schepers and Benjamin Faunce (both influential in early city governance), Professor of Farm Crops Vernon Shoesmith (M.A.C. ’01, also co-founder of the East Lansing Realty Company), State Veterinarian Dr. George Dunphy, Assistant Profesor of Botany James Dandeno, and longtime Wood Shop Instructor Andrew Krentel. Of the eight, all but the Giltner house remain standing today, but only three were recognized by the city as Landmark and Significant Structures.6
In all, Chace Newman’s design was a subtly ingenious solution to two very different goals. He and Emma were able to build their own dream home as the centerpiece of their ten-acre development. And at the same time, College Heights provided an improved street arrangement that continues to benefit East Lansing to this day.
For an extra bit of trivia: Newman’s plat also included two alleys—each with a name of its own. The first, “Sunshine Alley,” ran north from Grand River Avenue along the plat’s west side. Though the name was literally erased by Newman on his 1915 map, the alley itself remains in use and has since been extended to Marshall Street. The second, “Meadow Lane,” ran east-west just west of the Newman house, linking Hillside (later Hickory, now Hillcrest) to Sunshine Alley. Over time, this short lane was absorbed into the adjacent lots, and no visible trace of it remains today.
| Jacob Schepers House, 335 Hillcrest Ave. (1905) |  |
| Chace Newman House, 368 Oak Hill Ave. (1908) |  |
| Krentel–Faunce House, 319 Hillcrest Ave. (1909) |  |
Next: Avondale
- LSR, 20 Aug 1903, p. 5. Towar, p. 48. ↩︎
- Newman (1915). Sanborn (1953), p. 276. ↩︎
- LSJ, 18 Aug 1914, p. 9. ↩︎
- Sanborn (1926), p. 276. ↩︎
- LSJ, 31 Oct 1958, p. 32. ↩︎
- Towar, p. 48. LSR, 28 Jun 1905, p. 3; 4 May 1909, p. 9. LJ, 16 May 1906, p. 7; 10 Jul 1907, p. 2. LSJ, 2 Mar 1970, p. 2. LCD (1924), pp. 1094, 1097. ↩︎
- † Mysteriously, that map includes a parenthetical that implies the street might also briefly have been called “Highland Avenue.”↩︎
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