{"id":1277,"date":"2024-04-26T20:11:51","date_gmt":"2024-04-26T20:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/?p=1277"},"modified":"2026-02-10T16:25:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T16:25:45","slug":"wildwood-apts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wildwood-apts\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildwood Apartments, 308 Abbot Rd. (1913–1972)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Wildwood Apartments in 1953, by then in use as a fraternity house. Image source: Wolverine (1953), p. 373.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Local Weather Bureau<\/a> forecaster Dewey A. Seeley (M.A.C. \u201998) commissioned College Architect Edwyn A. Bowd<\/a> to design a three-story, six-unit apartment building at the northeast corner of Abbot Road and Albert Avenue. Completed in 1913, the Wildwood Apartments were the first apartment building constructed in East Lansing.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The name originated from the fact that Abbot Road was called \u201cWildwood Avenue\u201d by the\u00a0College Grove<\/a>\u00a0plat\u2014but only on the east side of the street. The\u00a0Oakwood<\/a>\u00a0plat, to the west, referred to it as Abbot Road. Towar writes, vaguely, \u201cthis confusion of names was soon remedied after the city was organized,\u201d\u00a0but an item in the Lansing State Republican<\/em> provides a precise date: August 12, 1910, when a city ordinance was passed “to take immediate effect.” In short, the Wildwood Apartments were named after a street name that had already been phased out. Unfortunately, this ordinance also appears to be the source of the misspelled \u201cAbbott\u201d name.†<\/a><\/sup> Meanwhile, contemporary maps were slow to catch up: a Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1913 shows it as \u201cWildwood,\u201d while Newman\u2019s map from two years later labels it \u201cAbbot Avenue.\u201d2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after the building was ready for occupancy in 1913, an eatery called the \u201cWildwood Tea Rooms\u201d was opened by sisters Lulu and Iza Bell Smith in one of the first-floor apartments. It quickly became a popular venue for luncheons and banquets. The cafe moved out in 1918 and later reopened on Grand River Avenue, but that\u2019s a different story<\/a>.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Detailed information on the steel-framed, brick-and-tile construction has not been found by this author. However, if it was anything like most Bowd designs, it was modestly decorated yet solidly constructed and highly functional. Long belt courses of Bedford stone and repeating galvanized metal brackets at the eaves, while not particularly distinctive, were something of a Bowd trademark. Each five-room apartment had its own private, enclosed veranda facing Abbot Road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 1949, the building was purchased by the local chapter of Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity. They moved from 803 E. Grand River, which they had purchased in 1944.††<\/a><\/sup> Existing Wildwood tenants, \u201csome of whom have lived in the building for as long as 30 years,\u201d were given until the first of August to move out.†††<\/a><\/sup> The fraternity stayed there for fifteen years, until 1964 when they moved to a new-built, modern house at 432 Evergreen Avenue, where they remain today.4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This marked the end of the line for the former Wildwood Apartments. After the fraternity moved out, the city building department inspected the building, declared it \u201ccondemned as unfit for human habitation,\u201d and ordered it vacated. It was boarded up and left to rot.5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
This sign promoting \u201cA Better East Lansing\u201d was erected in front of the Wildwood Apartments in 1968. \u201cBut first city liquor policy must be changed.\u201d Image source: Lansing State Journal, 10 Apr 1970, p. 3.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then in 1968, the empty Wildwood became a pawn in the recurring effort to remove the \u201cdry clause\u201d from the city charter<\/a>. Ann Arbor-based developers, having collected options to purchase several lots in the block bounded by Abbot, Albert, Linden, and Grove Streets, announced plans to build an $8 million, seventeen-story hotel and apartment building on the Wildwood Apartments site and the lots behind it. One catch: the project would only proceed if the city rescinded its liquor ban. The prospect of $200,000 in annual tax revenue was enticing\u2014and so too was the fact that the Wildwood had become an eyesore anchoring a prominent downtown corner and was seen as a hindrance to redevelopment. On November 5, 1968, voters \u201capproved liquor by the glass\u2026 by a vote of 7,147 to 3,935.\u201d The nearly two-to-one balance in favor, coming after referenda in 1958 and 1962 had each failed to change the law, was widely thought to be a direct result of the hotel proposal.6<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two years later, with the city council facing an influx of liquor license applications, at the Wildwood site nothing had come to pass. The Lansing State Journal<\/em> ran an article titled \u201cPromise Unfulfilled\u201d about the lack of progress. A city inspector described the Wildwood\u2019s utterly derelict condition, noting that it would be \u201cvirtually impossible to renovate the old apartment building to meet current standards.\u201d The owner of the property was holding out hope that the developers would be able to proceed with the hotel, and said that \u201cit\u2019s just a matter of financing.\u201d But it was not to be. The developers were unable to obtain the necessary backing, and the lot soon went up for sale along with others that had been under option. The apartment block, deemed by the city \u201can attractive nuisance, posing a danger to the community,\u201d was demolished in September 1972.7<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three commercial buildings were built on the north side of Albert Avenue from 1971 to 1976 and remain today, but the site of the Wildwood Apartments has never been rebuilt upon. At some point, the City took over the property and established a \u201cno name\u201d park there. In 2016 the City Council named the park for William B. \u201cBill\u201d Sharp (1928\u20132016, M.S.C. w\/\u201949), former East Lansing police officer, school board member, and longtime city council member.8<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n

  1. American Contractor<\/a>, 34(13), 29\u00a0Mar\u00a01913, p.\u00a071.\u00a0Towar<\/a>, p.\u00a0 113. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  2. Towar<\/a>, pp.\u00a096\u201397.\u00a0Sanborn<\/a>\u00a0(1913), p.\u00a0105.\u00a0Newman<\/a>\u00a0(1915). \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  3. MAC Record<\/a>, 19(4), 21\u00a0Oct\u00a01913, p.\u00a02. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  4. LSJ<\/a>, 13\u00a0Mar\u00a01949, p.\u00a033. Wolverine (1964), p.\u00a0330. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  5. LSJ<\/a>, 10\u00a0Apr\u00a01970, p.\u00a03. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  6. Kestenbaum<\/a>, p.\u00a040.\u00a0LSJ<\/a>, 5\u00a0Aug\u00a01971, p.\u00a055. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  7. LSJ<\/a>, 10\u00a0Apr\u00a01970, p.\u00a03; 5 May 1970, p. 3; 1 Jun 1970, p. 3; 5\u00a0Aug\u00a01971, p.\u00a055; 24\u00a0Jan\u00a01972, p.\u00a013; 10\u00a0Aug\u00a01972, p.\u00a017; 13\u00a0Sep\u00a01972, p.\u00a017. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  8. ELi<\/a>, 22\u00a0Jun\u00a02016. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>
    1. † Abbot Road is named for Theophilus C. Abbot, the college\u2019s third President. Yet the 1910 ordinance spelled the name of the road as Abbott \u2014 with two \u201ct\u201ds. This resulted in decades of confusion. To commemorate the city\u2019s centennial, on 2 October 2007 the East Lansing City Council enacted Ordinance No. 1179, reestablishing the Abbot Road name.\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/span><\/li>
    2. †† That house was built 1925 by the Orphic Society, which soon became Pi Kappa Phi. It is still standing, now a Christian student co-op. Despite its obvious qualifications, it was not surveyed for inclusion in the Fraternity–Sorority Thematic Historic District.\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/span><\/li>
    3. ††† Only one of the Wildwood Apartments had tenants who had been there for thirty years: Benjamin B. and Norma Lucille (Gilchrist) Roseboom. She was living at the Wildwood by 1917, the same year they were married.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Benjamin and Norma both taught at the College. If her maiden name seems familiar, it should be: the Gilchrist family were powerhouses in American education. Norma\u2019s eldest sister, Maude Gilchrist, was Dean of Women at M.A.C. 1901\u20131913; today a north campus residence hall is named for her. Their father, James Cleland Gilchrist, in 1876 was the first principal of Iowa State Teachers College at Cedar Falls, now the University of Northern Iowa. Norma Gilchrist (1879\u20131950) was first employed at M.A.C. as an Instructor in English in 1905, and retired in 1941 as Associate Professor. She \u201cdid extensive work with foreign students, music and dramatic groups, and was active in club functions.\u201d An international student scholarship sponsored by the local chapter of the American Association of University Women was named in her honor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Benjamin Brokaw Roseboom Jr (1884\u20131956) started at M.A.C. in 1909 as an Instructor in Zoology. He organized and headed the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology when it was established in 1923, and chaired that department until his retirement in 1949 after forty years of service to M.S.C. Rather than rest on his laurels (and $1,800 retirement salary), he took an appointment as Professor of Physiology in the veterinary school of the University of Missouri at Columbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Professor Norma Roseboom died in 1950 following a lingering illness at the home of family in Auburn, New York. Professor Benjamin Roseboom, still teaching at Missouri, died of a heart attack in 1956. Both were 71 at their deaths, and laid to rest near Auburn.\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Local Weather Bureau forecaster Dewey A. Seeley (M.A.C. \u201998) commissioned College Architect Edwyn A. Bowd to design a three-story, six-unit apartment building at the northeast corner of Abbot Road and Albert Avenue. Completed in 1913, the Wildwood Apartments were the first apartment building constructed in East Lansing. The name originated from the fact that Abbot Road was called \u201cWildwood Avenue\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"American Contractor<\/a>, 34(13), 29\u00a0Mar\u00a01913, p.\u00a071.\u00a0Towar<\/a>, p.\u00a0 113.\",\"id\":\"90676c74-176f-455a-8ad2-9b6b8bd1af5e\"},{\"content\":\"Towar<\/a>, pp.\u00a096\u201397.\u00a0Sanborn<\/a>\u00a0(1913), p.\u00a0105.\u00a0Newman<\/a>\u00a0(1915).\",\"id\":\"a431a6b8-1b04-4ff7-acfa-ebb26665893f\"},{\"content\":\"MAC Record<\/a>, 19(4), 21\u00a0Oct\u00a01913, p.\u00a02.\",\"id\":\"6a1b5caa-c4d3-48dc-bd77-b2cfcc7e2381\"},{\"content\":\"LSJ<\/a>, 13\u00a0Mar\u00a01949, p.\u00a033. Wolverine (1964), p.\u00a0330.\",\"id\":\"8e207062-4225-45fa-b4bb-1375c705cb3e\"},{\"content\":\"LSJ<\/a>, 10\u00a0Apr\u00a01970, p.\u00a03.\",\"id\":\"3bb160da-5b9e-4c09-89c9-dfec50482077\"},{\"content\":\"Kestenbaum<\/a>, p.\u00a040.\u00a0LSJ<\/a>, 5\u00a0Aug\u00a01971, p.\u00a055.\",\"id\":\"07741dcc-ca11-4641-9a0e-980ac5ae07e0\"},{\"content\":\"LSJ<\/a>, 10\u00a0Apr\u00a01970, p.\u00a03; 5 May 1970, p. 3; 1 Jun 1970, p. 3; 5\u00a0Aug\u00a01971, p.\u00a055; 24\u00a0Jan\u00a01972, p.\u00a013; 10\u00a0Aug\u00a01972, p.\u00a017; 13\u00a0Sep\u00a01972, p.\u00a017.\",\"id\":\"26e04307-3834-42ad-8482-1c3bb6da725e\"},{\"content\":\"ELi<\/a>, 22\u00a0Jun\u00a02016.\",\"id\":\"6c905a84-a05d-4243-a308-5fa05b1c9ee9\"}]"},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-losteastlansing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1277"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5458,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions\/5458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}