Did Detroiters Really Vacation on Lake Erie?

Detroit Beach — Lake Erie used to be a vacation spot for Detroiters. Hard to believe, I know. If you go to the shores of Frenchtown Township today, the water is murky, the shoreline is strewn with dead birds, and industrial smoke hangs over everything.

But the shallowest Great Lake has always looked like dirt water, and we are the ones who changed. Old images of Detroit Beach, just north of Monroe, show families swimming as if they’re at Lake Michigan.

Why is this spot called Detroit Beach? Just like Greenland was misnamed to attract people, so was this community. The Industrial Development Company established the Detroit Beach community to attract buyers from Detroit. While some locals lived in the neighborhood, many Detroiters bought summer cottages and spent the summers here.

In 1944, Father Huver of St. John’s in Monroe requested from the Archbishop of the Diocese of Detroit to hold services at the Detroit Beach Clubhouse ballroom. By the end of the 1940s, St. Anne’s Catholic Church was built to serve the resort area that had morphed into a neighborhood that loved privacy. In the postwar era, a permanent church indicates that the summer cottages were becoming permanent dwellings.

The Detroit Beach Association formed around this time to protect the home-owning privileges of the residents. But that was part of the problem. As the resort homes became residential, Detroiters who simply owned summer properties didn’t have the same investment in modern amenities. As a result, it took years for the neighborhood to have paved streets, clean water, sewage, and a dike for keeping back high water.

The current neighborhood is in the Frenchtown Township Resort District, though no one really vacations in the neighborhood anymore. When I visited, I found there was no resort spirit left.

Though today’s Detroit Beach isn’t a gated community, there is no public access to the beaches, boat launches, parks, or the boat club. If you want to go see the beach, you are technically trespassing when you enter.

Yet I got in. It was quiet. The houses were close together, and there were boats in most yards. But there was a familiar atmosphere of Lake Erieness in the air. It reminded me of my great grandparent’s old cottage I used to visit in Sandusky, Ohio––campers, boats, and trailers of all kinds strewn in well-cut yards with lake access. The only negative was the playground looked unused, though well kept. It was clear the median age was probably 50.

Despite the peace I saw when I visited, the neighborhood has experienced many floods over the years. In 1957, a dike was erected to protect the community from high water. This created tension in the community. Some said it destroyed the beach, which was the reason for the neighborhood in the first place. The Detroit Beach Association kept it anyway.

Throughout Detroit Beach’s history, there have been two mainstays: house flooding and pizza.

Though residents mourned the loss of the beach they once knew, everything flooded consistently, damaging homes. In 1973-74, major flooding happened and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed dikes. But this was temporary. By 1985, they had to repair them again. And so it went. Every time a major flood occurred more repairs were made, up until 2012, when the current seawall was constructed. In 2018, however, there was still major flooding that most of Frenchtown Township’s pumps couldn’t keep up with and many homes were damaged.

Some of the 2,000 residents left due to the flooding. I heard one account of a lady having a moving van pull right up to her house and slide a ramp to the front door. She packed everything up and never returned.

But despite such stories, most of the residents have persevered through the damaged flooring. They love the privacy of a small community on the lake, as well as the Detroit Beach Restaurant and Pizzeria. The current owners, Peter and Erica Conte, are third-generation owners of the Conte family’s pizzeria and have maintained the family traditions of Italian eating for 60 years.

The restaurant is a small building with about 40 seats packed tight. The yellow-tiled bathroom is also tight and looks as if it hasn't been updated since the 1970s. The food is far better than your average pizza joint. Not only is there pizza, but also frog legs, veal, and chicken livers.

The founding owners, Peter and Rita Conte, were Italian immigrants who made their way to New York and then Monroe, establishing the family business in 1964. The neighborhood has faithfully supported the family business. It’s clear that the pizzeria is the social hub. It not only shares the name of the neighborhood it serves, but also gives it cultural stability.

The old cottages, once for vacationers, became permanent so residents might have a private neighborhood. Whether residents come from Detroit or Monroe doesn’t matter. They are now Detroit Beachers. They struggle together through the lake rising over the seawall and enjoy pizza more than the average Michigander.