After shuttering the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory in 2022 for extensive work that incorporated more than $12 million in two phases of renovations, Detroit’s Belle Isle landmark reopened last December. Dignitaries and project managers celebrated with an impressive ribbon-cutting ceremony — and the public questioned what had changed.
“We knew we’d done a good job because visitors returned wondering what the heck we’d been doing for two years,” says Amanda Treadwell, urban area field planner for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the conservatory’s project planner. “This was a long project, and very costly, but also really subtle.”
The century-old building’s major improvements — swapping aging glass with safety glass, improving irrigation systems, and eliminating asbestos and lead paint — rank as unquestionable enhancements. But they’re easily hidden by the building’s historic design, which was precisely what the project’s planners had hoped for.
The initial improvements to Detroit’s Neoclassical jewel got underway in 2017, just three years after the island in the Detroit River became Michigan’s 102nd state park. Repairs to the conservatory’s lower level and the replacement of all 20 of the building’s soaring steel trusses were completed in 2019, at a cost of $2.5 million.
The lion’s share of the restoration, and its most costly phase at $10 million, began in late 2022, when the conservatory shut its doors for an undertaking that included replacing all the glass panels that make up the building’s iconic dome.
More than 1,500 panes of safety glass were placed within the 80-foot-tall conservatory dome, every one of them hand-cut because of the unique angles and curvature of each piece. The new glass provided improved light to the building and increased human safety in the event of breakage. The panels also better control the influx of UV infiltration, temperature fluctuations, and ventilation, enhancing the environment for the plants that live there.
Additional improvements to the building included installing new catwalks, restoring exterior limestone panels, putting on a new vestibule roof, and adding modern irrigation and ceiling fans. The cactus and tropical wings received new glass, the seasonal showroom got a new floor and planters, and a number of ADA-accessibility improvements were made.
Preventing harm to the facility’s thousands of unique and rare plants for the entirety of the two-year project added substantial complexity to the undertaking. Contractors encased the indoor plantings within an elaborate protective scaffolding and outfitted the shell with grow lights to make up for the loss of natural light.
Historical Significance
Belle Isle’s conservatory was designed by Detroit’s own Albert Kahn, an innovative and prolific early 20th-century architect. Kahn located his botanical garden, then known simply as the Conservatory, alongside the Belle Isle Aquarium, which he also designed. The two buildings opened to the public on the same day in 1904 and quickly became leading attractions on Belle Isle. The aquarium completed its own two-year renovation in late 2024 (see the Michigan Blue Summer 2024 issue).
The conservatory was originally constructed with ornate wooden frame framing on steel trusses. In the 1950s, deteriorating wood led officials to upgrade its five wings and central dome with aluminum window casing, adding noticeable sparkle to the island on sunny days.
Another boon came to the conservatory in 1955, when Anna Scripps Whitcomb, daughter of Detroit News founder James Scripps, donated her collection of 600 exotic orchids to the conservatory. The gift gave Detroit the largest municipally owned orchid collection in the country, and the city renamed the building in Whitcomb’s honor.
“We wanted to retain the historic integrity of this building,” Treadwell says of plans to renovate and modernize the noteworthy conservatory, which, along with many other cultural resources on Belle Isle, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “We wanted to make sure we weren’t doing anything that was going to stand out from the original.”
Island Treasure
While it’s tempting to focus attention on the building’s beauty and historic significance, the conservatory’s unique horticultural and aquatic collections are themselves a treasure. Thriving within the building’s approximately 1-acre interior space are more than 5,000 species of plants from around the world: palms, cacti, tropical fruit trees, ferns, flowering plants and bushes, and, naturally, orchids.
Outdoors, a lily-koi pond and flower gardens bloom in season. New sidewalks lead visitors through the outdoor gardens to the much-touted Oudolf Garden Detroit, which opened adjacent to the conservatory in 2021.
The Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory is one of the oldest joint conservatory-aquarium facilities operating in the U.S., and its building is considered one of the nation’s oldest turn-of-the-20th-century glass houses still in existence.
“This conservatory is really popular with Detroiters,” Treadwell says. “Whether they really like plants, or they’re an art history or architecture buff interested in Albert Kahn, or whether they’re out on Belle Isle on a cold day and just want to warm up inside, there’s reason to visit the conservatory.”
Plan it!
Belle Isle Conservatory
belleisleconservancy.org
