Loch Alpine

Ward Blakely's 1925 plan

Blakely bought his 470 acres in 1925, on a track between Delhi and Dexter that barely qualified as a road, and aimed the development at the rising class of businessmen in Detroit's automotive industry. In 1926 he launched three construction projects at once: two dams across Boyden Creek to form Bridgeway and Greenook lakes, the front nine holes of the golf course, and the roads plus a water and sewerage system.

The labor came from the neighborhood. Blakely hired farmers from Scio and Webster townships, with their mules, at eight dollars a day — a substantial wage at the time — to clear the land, beginning with the hardwood forest standing on the twenty-three acres that would become the lakes. The course's front nine opened in 1928 and the back nine in 1931.

The name is a small piece of romanticism that stuck: "loch," the Scottish word for lake, joined to "alpine" for the rolling, tree-covered ground. A century on, the lakes and the contours are still the community's defining features.

What happened to the golf course

The Ann Arbor Country Club sat at the center of Loch Alpine for most of the community's history. The course is closed, and the property has been through a decade of litigation.

The dispute began when an investor bought the roughly 125-acre course property in a lender-forced sale for $2.6 million and sought the Loch Alpine Improvement Association's approval to build houses on it. The Association refused, and the investor sued. The case turned on a property restriction dating to 1975, which provides that a golf course shall be the only use alternative to residential use of those lots — language the courts ultimately enforced.

The ten-year litigation concluded in 2026 with the Association's position upheld: no residential construction is permitted on the former course. For a buyer this is arguably a better outcome than the amenity it replaced. Rather than an operating club that could close, be sold, or change its terms, the community now has 125 acres of open ground next to it that cannot be built on. Anyone for whom the specifics matter should confirm the current state of the property and the association's plans for it directly, since a closed course is a piece of land with an uncertain future use even when its development is restricted.

The homes

The housing spans decades. The earliest houses are mid-century moderns from the 1950s, joined over the following decades by Tudors, colonials, and contemporary houses built through the early 2000s. Most sit on generous lots that follow the natural contours rather than a grid, with mature forest, creek frontage, and lake frontage distributed unevenly across the community.

That range means the market here resists averages. A 1955 modern, a 1978 colonial, and a 2001 contemporary are three different products, and lot character — water frontage, woods, grade, proximity to the former course — moves value independently of house size. Comparable sales need matching on era and on lot, not just square footage.

The older houses ask what mid-century houses ask: roofs, mechanical systems, windows, electrical service, and the condition of any original single-glazed glass. The other document that governs an owner here is the Loch Alpine Improvement Association's recorded restrictions, which are worth reading while a house is still one of several under consideration.

One thing this community does not carry is the well-and-septic arrangement a township address usually implies. Blakely built a water and sewerage system into the original 1926 plan, and its successor is the Loch Alpine Sanitary Authority, a public utility jointly operated by Scio and Webster townships that also serves Glen Devon and North Delhi Hills. Its board seats seven members — three appointed by each township board and one representing the improvement association — and it is an entity independent of the association. Water and sewer here are billed by a public authority rather than handled lot by lot, and the association's dues and the utility's charges are two separate obligations.

The setting and the association

Two lakes — Bridgeway and Greenook, both created by Blakely's 1926 dams on Boyden Creek — sit within the community, along with a private neighborhood park with a ball field and playground. Winding roads follow the terrain, and mature forest covers much of the ground.

The Loch Alpine Improvement Association governs the community, and as the litigation demonstrated, it has both recorded restrictions and the willingness to enforce them. Anyone buying here should read those documents carefully: they are the instrument that just preserved 125 acres from development, and they govern what an individual owner may do as well.

The community sits in Webster and Scio townships rather than in a city, which means township taxes, and it carries an Ann Arbor mailing address while being served by Dexter Community Schools — three different answers again, none inferable from the others.

The river corridor

Loch Alpine sits along Huron River Drive, which is one of the better stretches of road in the county and the spine of a long corridor of public land. Hudson Mills Metropark lies upstream to the northwest with several hundred acres along the river, and Dexter-Huron Metropark sits between the community and Ann Arbor. Delhi Metropark is further downstream.

The Border-to-Border Trail runs the corridor as well, connecting Dexter east toward Ann Arbor and beyond by bike. Between the community's own two lakes, its private park, the 125 preserved acres of former course, and the metroparks along the river, this is an unusual concentration of accessible open ground — and after the litigation, a good deal more of it is permanently protected than was the case a few years ago.

That combination is genuinely the point of living here. The Blakely plan of 1925 was drawn around landscape, the lakes were dug for it in 1926, and a century later the land is still what distinguishes the community from subdivisions of similar vintage elsewhere in the county.

Schools

Loch Alpine is served by Dexter Community Schools despite its Ann Arbor mailing address. That assignment follows district boundaries rather than postal or municipal ones.

Getting around

The community sits off Huron River Drive between Ann Arbor and Dexter, which puts downtown Ann Arbor roughly fifteen minutes east and Dexter about ten minutes west. I-94 and M-14 are both reachable for regional travel, with Detroit Metro Airport around forty minutes out. Hudson Mills and Dexter-Huron metroparks are close along the river.

Buying or selling in Loch Alpine

Get the current status of the former course property in writing before an offer. That is the single most consequential fact about this community right now, and it changed only recently. What is established is that residential development on it is barred; what any given buyer should also establish is what the association intends for the land and what, if anything, that implies for dues.

Beyond that, match comparable sales on era and lot. Read the association's recorded restrictions. And on the older houses, run the full systems review that mid-century construction deserves.

For sellers, the honest framing is stronger than the outdated one. Loch Alpine is a community conceived as a single design in 1925, with two lakes built in 1926, houses spanning seventy years of architecture on wooded contour lots, township taxes, Dexter schools, and — now — 125 adjoining acres that a court has confirmed cannot be built on. A listing that says that clearly reaches a buyer who will not be surprised by what they find, which a listing advertising an operating golf course cannot claim.