When a court sided with homeowners who blocked a path to the Arb two years ago, some residents warned that it could spell the end of the private entryways, long a cherished perquisite of the neighborhood off Geddes. Now that prediction has proved true.
In 2011, the owners of two homes on Highland placed a gate across a path residents had used for decades. A group of neighbors sued to reopen it. The costly litigation lasted two years and pitted neighbors of the once tight-knit, affluent community against one another. The defendants won at trial, and that path remains closed.
Neighbors could still use another path nearby, through a lot next to the longtime home of Leo and Mary Lighthammer on Regent Ct. But after Leo’s death last year (Mary died in 2010), the home was sold to Kevin Thompson and Manja Holland, and the adjacent lot was sold to Karen and Christopher Folger.
A cordial email from Kevin Thompson introducing his family to the neighbors noted that the Arb is a beautiful place that drew them to this location. It continued: “Due to our having a young family, being new and not knowing neighbors yet and a desire for privacy we’ve decided to revoke the permission of public Arb access through our private property previously granted by the Lighthammer family.” He wrote that the Folger family shared this position. (Neither couple would comment to the Observer.)
Signs on the property directed walkers to find an alternate route to the Arb. The closest public entrance, off Geddes, is an uphill walk of just over a mile. Barbara Hilbert, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, says that while she once walked in the Arb twice daily, she rarely does so now.
Scarce additional private paths remain. A number of the houses along Orchard Hills Dr. have entry points, but it’s unclear whether anyone besides the homeowners uses them, says Bob Grese, director of the Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum. People on Riverview Dr. can use a strip of land on that street to access the Arb. But for Highland neighborhood residents the public entrance is closer.
Susan Karp used both the Highland and Regent Ct. paths when she lived in the neighborhood. Still, she’s sympathetic with the homeowners. “It was great to have that, but I didn’t feel it was my right to have it,” she says.
“The loss of the path means of course that our neighborhood no longer has its own entrance to the Arb,” says Hilbert, “something that most of us counted on when we purchased our homes.” But Hilbert is now focused on returning cohesion to the neighborhood; she says its book group and block party are again thriving. “Our neighborhood is still a vital, friendly, and helpful place to live,” she says.
Another plaintiff, U-M prof Nick Delbanco, sounds a sadder note: “A great convivial pleasure is gone, a sense of community lost,” he says. “I no longer walk that way.”
