When This Detroit Couple Found a Home With a Greenhouse, They Built a Community Garden
as excerpted by Domino from Cheap Old Houses
words by Elizabeth & Ethan Finkelstein with Christina Poletto
photography by Kelly Marshall
Roots are important to Kamaria Gray and Dakarai Carter of Detroit. It’s fundamental to their past—they met while working at a nonprofit guiding youth on how to cook healthy, fulfilling meals using fresh fruits and vegetables. A part of the program even allowed students to get their hands in the dirt and grow their own ingredients. The passion for learning how to cultivate food and community was important, and they both knew this interest would be a through-line in their future lives. So when they heard about a cheap old house for sale with a small greenhouse and an acre of land, they began thinking of ways the property could be a gardening-based conduit to growth and connection with the neighborhood. They bought it for $110,000.
The house is their way of establishing roots, too. It has been a staple of their East Side neighborhood since it was built in 1948, replete with five bedrooms and period details scattered throughout. And it’s their first home together, both as a couple and as a family with their new baby, Cozi.
