LOOKING BACK: Madison Heights Cooperative Homesteads

MADISON HEIGHTS — “An unidentified woman and her dog pose near 13 Mile Road and Milton Avenue at the Cooperative Homesteads development — later known as the Frank Lloyd Wright subdivision — sometime in the late 1940s. Although consulted in the early 1940s, the famed architect did not design the 22 homes built on the 120-acre site between 1946 and 1955. The subdivision was demolished in the early 2000s, and the land is now the site of a Meijer store, a church and condominiums.”

— Kevin Wright, member, Madison Heights Historical Commission

“On April 28, 1941, the Cooperative Homesteads group used money pooled from community members to buy 120 acres for $120,000. All land was jointly owned until 1955 when the cooperative dissolved because families couldn’t get credit to build homes there unless they ‘owned the land under the house.’ A Usonian-style earth block home, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, was constructed in 1941, but collapsed in a storm and ended up being bulldozed.”

— Vanessa Verdun-Morris, director of the Madison Heights Public Library