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Laid out on a golf course that closed in 1922. The streets curve because they are said to follow the old fairways.

Size

0.12 sq mi

city boundary

Built

1922–1959

platted for the automobile

Residents

800

approximately · 2020 census

Ottawa Hills is outlined by Martin Luther King Jr. Street to the north, the city limits near Cadillac Drive to the east, Hall Street to the south, and Giddings Avenue to the west. Southeast of downtown, tucked against the city limits between Hall Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Street.

What it’s like

Ottawa Hills feels different the moment you turn into it, because the streets bend instead of running straight — they were laid over a golf course, and the plat kept the shape of the fairways. Big trees, deep front yards, houses set well back. It is residential almost all the way through, so you drive to a coffee shop rather than walk, and the payoff is the streets themselves. Hollyhock Lane runs its Fourth of July parade every year, which is the day the whole neighborhood turns out.

Eat & drink

• Hall Street Bakery

  Not just baked goods, though they are much more than that — pizza and cocktails too. Start or end a date night with an espresso martini or a pizza. You won't hear anyone complaining. On Hall Street, right at the southern edge.

Also here

• Grand Rapids Public Library, Ottawa Hills Branch

  The library isn't only downtown. This branch gives you everything the downtown one has, walking distance from the park and from your closest friends.

• Ottawa Hills Park

  A large interactive playground, basketball courts, and a place to do calisthenics. Plenty to do there regardless of who you are.

Getting around

Downtown

About two and a half miles northwest — this is a drive, not a walk.

Eastown

Three quarters of a mile north, which is the nearest concentration of shops and bars.

Reeds Lake

A mile and a half east.

The edges do the commercial work

Hall Street on the south and Martin Luther King Jr. Street on the north carry what there is; the inside is residential nearly all the way through.

The homes

• Mixed — four decades, no single look · 1922–1959curving streets on the old fairways

Houses from 1922 through the 1950s, which covers a lot of ground architecturally — this is not a neighborhood with one look. The streets carry Native American names: Mackinaw, Chippewa, Cadillac, Seminole, Pontiac.

A golf course until 1922 — the curving streets are said to follow the old fairways. The longer story.