Wide streets of large early twentieth century mansions with carriage houses, and the church Sparkle used for a service scene.
What Indian Village looks like
Iroquois, Seminole and s run side by side for about a mile between Mack Avenue and East Jefferson Avenue, each one wide enough for its trees to close into a canopy overhead by midsummer. Houses sit well back from the sidewalk behind clipped hedges, iron fences and lawns with no driveway cutting across the front.
Brick, stone and stucco fronts alternate down the blocks. The on Iroquois is an Arts and Crafts design from 1912, and the on Seminole pairs stucco panels with dark timber framing on its upper floors. The , a few doors down on Seminole, has a steep double hipped Mansard roof instead of a gable. Most of the construction runs from the 1890s to the late 1920s.
Carriage houses stand behind many of the main houses, reached from the alley rather than the street. Some are as large as an ordinary house on their own. Stone entry arches, leaded windows and tall brick chimneys repeat from block to block, with Pewabic tile worked into several entries and porches. stands a few blocks north on Iroquois, its Gothic brick tower and pointed windows rising over the same kind of deep lawns as the houses around it.
Shot in Indian Village
For Sparkle, the 2012 remake set in 1968 Detroit, the production filmed inside Iroquois Avenue Christ Lutheran Church. Whitney Houston's character sings there in one of the film's church scenes.
Sparkle, 2012
Iroquois Avenue Christ Lutheran Church
Whitney Houston, playing the mother Emma, sings His Eyes Are on the Sparrow inside the church during a service scene. The film is set in 1968 Detroit, and the church plays its own city. Street View
Tudor, Georgian and Italian Renaissance mansions run along Lake Shore Drive on deep lots, the closest match anywhere in the region for Indian Village's own mix of revival styles and carriage houses. Both grew up in the same decades for the same kind of buyer. Lake Shore Drive runs along the water on one side, so a wide shot has to keep the lake out of frame or the location gives itself away immediately. Try searching Tudor and Georgian mansions now.
Ditmas Park in Brooklyn, New York
Ditmas Park's freestanding Colonial Revival and Queen Anne houses sit on generous lots along quiet, tree lined streets, close in scale to Indian Village's own early twentieth century houses. Ditmas Park's wood frame construction and narrower lots read differently from Indian Village's brick and stone in a close shot, so wider street level frames hold the illusion better. Try searching Colonial Revival tree lined streets now.
Prairie Avenue in Chicago, Illinois
Prairie Avenue's surviving Romanesque and Renaissance Revival mansions, each built with its own carriage house behind, are the closest match to Indian Village's turn of the century houses. Only a handful of the original mansions remain on Prairie Avenue today, so a full block of period houses would need dressing that Indian Village's own streets already keep intact. Try searching Romanesque Revival mansion carriage house now.
