Putnam: Pulling up roots of Lansing history

LANSING – If you want to see one of Lansing’s hidden gems, make sure to do it quickly. The Scott Sunken Garden, a little wonder of a public garden in an urban setting, faces uprooting.

I visited the garden at Scott Park last week, located at the southwest corner of South Washington Avenue and Malcolm X (formerly Main) Street.

While you can’t see anything from the street, once there I discovered a riot of blue irises and pink peonies and honeysuckle-scented air. When you step down into the garden, created in 1930 from the limestone foundation of a demolished mansion, you find a tiny oasis of calm and beauty with a view of the downtown skyline.

The sweet space, now in full bloom, could soon be the site of a controversial electrical substation that instead of growing plants will feature hard metal components jutting into the sky.

The plan to use four acres of Scott Park has offended the volunteer gardeners who have given countless hours of their time to maintain the sunken garden for three decades. It’s angered the family who donated the land. And a local activist ties the space to Michigan’s Civil Rights history that he fears will be lost.

But this isn’t a clear-cut case of heroes and villains. The Lansing Board of Water and Light and the city of Lansing are promising a lot of public good to ease the pain of transforming the public green space into use by the utility.

Among the benefits: Clean energy (it's needed to close a coal plant), more public art, affordable housing, a looped walking trail and viewing platforms on the Grand River, and a celebration of the auto history of the area on the walls that surround the substation.

The sunken garden won’t be completely lost. The plan calls for it to be moved closer to the river and west on the property “brick by brick, stone by stone and plant by plant,” said Stephen Serkaian, BWL spokesman. The utility has pledged $40,000 as an endowment to maintain the garden along with $20,000 every three years for public art.

Backers appear to be dangling carrots to lessen resistance to the plan.

For example, Mayor Virg Bernero last week announced a “win-win-win” plan to donate an old building on the site to Habitat for Humanity as part of an affordable housing project. It will be moved a mile west as the hub for a development affordable condominiums.

The building is called the Scott Center or Scott House but that’s a confusing name as the 9-bedroom Scott mansion was demolished in 1965. It  really should be named the Jenison House, owned by Orien Jenison and built in 1918.  It's a Tudor that's been sided over, and it originally was located on Townsend Street.

Moving the now-neglected Scott/Jenison house to another location and transforming it into affordable housing sounds great. But that doesn’t change the facts: Land donated to the city for a park will be used to house a substation instead of green space.

• Related: Scott House and Scott Sunken Garden (archive photos)
• Related: Historic home in Lansing to be saved, moved by BWL
• Related: A new electrical substation or a century-old home?

Judy Scott Teegardin of Holland is the granddaughter of Richard and Gertrude Scott, who owned a mansion on the site. The Scott mansion was built in 1905 and torn down in 1965. Richard Scott commissioned the sunken garden after tearing down a neighboring mansion once owned by Edward Cahill, a Civil War veteran who later became a state Supreme Court justice.

She said her grandfather, who followed R.E. Olds as the general manager and president of the REO Motor Car Co., donated multiple parcels for parks in the city. Scott Park was donated by her father, Maurice, in the late '70s.

Teegardin said she is angry over plans to use her family's former home site as a substation.

“Instead of donating it to the people like we wanted to, the Scott family could have sold the land and pocketed the money. They wanted the people to enjoy it,” she said.

Tootsie Lambo, a member of the Garden Club of Greater Lansing, said the group voted a few months ago to stop maintaining the garden should it be moved. Volunteers have been mowing, weeding, mulching and planting the garden for more than three decades.

“It won’t be the same. There’s no way possible,” she said.

Lansing resident Art Hasbrook discovered the sunken garden while riding his bike about a decade ago. He loves the space and its location, though the river bank is overgrown.

He’s researched the history of the site, tying Cahill to a key Supreme Court decision in 1890 that prohibited racial discrimination in public spaces.

"I always hoped the river trail and the bank would be restored. I never fathomed the city demolishing the historical integrity of the Scott Sunken Garden," he said.

Serkaian said the plans have been approved by the Lansing Parks and Recreation board as well as BWL Board of Commissioners. The Lansing Planning Board and Lansing City Council still must consider the project. The Planning Board meets at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Neighborhood Empowerment Center, 600 W. Maple.

Though Serkaian said there's been discussion of putting the plan before voters, he contends that's unnecessary as the council will only need to approve a change in the master plan for use of the park space as utility space. It won't be a sale of the property required a public vote, he said.

Serkaian said the location is by far the most affordable for ratepayers. Other potential sites were far more expensive or unavailable or located in a floodplain.

There are tough tradeoffs in this swap. The only thing that's clear is that if it all goes as BWL wishes, this could be the last blooming season to see Scott Sunken Garden in its original location. It's worth the effort to go see it.

Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Write to her at300 S. Washington Square Suite #300 Lansing, MI, 48933. Follow her on Twitter @JudyPutnam.

Join Putnam and the community engagement team 6-8 p.m. Monday at Lansing Brewing Co.