Detroit Boat Club building
Quote:
Originally Posted by
p69rrh51
The building is in awlful condition I cannot tell how bad it really is! The biggest problem are the underpinnings holding the island itself up the bundles of piliings are exposed to the river and are rotting away. The last estimate I know about to repair them was 20 million and that was over 20 years ago, who knows what the cost would be now. The clubhouse either needs to be torn down or moved to a more stable location.
This is incorrect. This building was build as a boathouse for rowing and is not actually on Belle Isle, but is constructed on pilings in the Detroit River. When first opened, there was no land around the building at all, water went right up to the walls of the building. This was done to ease the launch and recover of the clubs canoes and rowing shells.
The cedar pilings that the building sits on have been inspected twice over the last 15 years and are considered sound and structurally solid. In fact, it is necessary for the pilings to remain wet or they will deteriorate. On the ground floor are a number of access panels. Lifting these revels that the river continues to flow under the building. In the earliest years of the club there was a large open access apx. where the men's showers are now know as 'the plunge'. This was used as a short of indoor swimming pool.
Infill around the building started in the 1910s and was pretty much like you see it now by 1926 when the swimming pools were completed.
The exterior of the building appear to be in poor shape, in particular the West and North elevations. Most of this is deteriorating stucco, the structure underneath is sound. The interior of the building is warm and dry and retains much of its original grandeur. The building has never been vacant, the rowing crew continues to row and train there six days a week, seven during race season.
The removal of the rotting and damaged docks is hoped to be only the first step in the complete renewal of this historic Apheus Chittenden designed boathouse.