Although she spent her childhood years in Paris, journalist Margot Guicheteau always felt pulled to Detroit, her Polish maternal family’s hometown. Ever since her first visit she’s been deeply connected to the city, and currently calls Core City home. “I still remember the first night I arrived (in Detroit, at age 24),” Guicheteau recalls. “I asked my cousin to take me to Poletown, the neighborhood where my mom grew up. It was 11 p.m., the air was freezing, and the atmosphere felt eerie, dramatic, and beautiful all at once. Even though I had traveled to the U.S. every year and taken road trips since childhood, I had never seen a city like Detroit. Immediately, I felt at home. There was history here; there were stories that needed to be told.”
Her new book, “Soul of Detroit — A Guide to Exceptional Experiences,” highlights 30 of the city’s most carefully curated gems, from hidden hotels to outstanding restaurants. Detroit Design caught up with Guicheteau to dig into her experience as a Parisian in Detroit and how this book came to life.
DD: You’re originally from Paris. What brought you to Detroit?
Margot Guicheteau: I began my career at 21 as a journalist for the French national newspaper Le Figaro, writing for the Lifestyle section, mainly about design. After a few years, I realized I wanted to tell stories that required being out in the field. I was searching for something more adventurous, more exhilarating. That’s what led me to Detroit, where my mother was from. Growing up, I heard her stories about the places she used to go, places that had since disappeared. Detroit was a mystery to me, yet I felt connected to it.
DD: What led you to create this book?
MG: After my first experience in Detroit, I lived all over the United States — New York, Seattle, the middle of nowhere in North Carolina, and Nashville, yet I always found myself coming back to Detroit. No matter where I was, I was proud to talk about my time in this city, and eventually life brought me back here.
DD: Of the 1,000 sites you tried, how did you choose 30?
MG: The locations featured were chosen for the ways they have shaped, and continue to shape, Detroit’s unique identity. The city is full of magical places you won’t find anywhere else in America. The challenge, though, is that in Detroit everything is a little hidden. You have to push doors open, know someone who can take you there, make the effort to find them. But truly, what other city has a Hare Krishna temple inside a Ford mansion, a 1930s Russian sauna, the largest Masonic Temple in the world, chocolate made entirely locally, farm-to-table food served straight from an Airstream on a vacant lot, or a bar where you can play feather bowling?
DD: Did design play a role in the selected locations and, if so, how?
MG: If we think of design as the intentional process of imagining, planning, and creating something that serves a purpose, using elements like line, shape, form, space, texture, tone, and color, then Detroiters have always embodied that mindset in what they make, and they still do. To me, there’s as much design thinking in the way Dutch Girl Donuts shaped its space back in 1947 as there is in the beer spot Collect, built just two years ago. Both show how intentional we can be with a space, even in very different contexts. On another scale, Alexandra Clark, the creator of Bon Bon Bon, brings a deeply considered design approach to her chocolates, from their wrapping to the visual identity she crafted.
DD: Are there any on the list you’d recommend for design fans?
MG: Core City, the neighborhood where I live and built my house, is, I think, the most inspiring in terms of innovative structures. The inhabited Quonset huts, the Caterpillar, and the way the units interact with light while creating a feeling of warmth are deeply inspiring. The restaurant Barda is also unique, with its sunken 30-seat bar clad in vivid blue tiles. And, of course, the wildly imaginative Warren Gateway playground is a truly avant-garde structure, as well.
DD: What does an ideal day in metro Detroit entail for you?
MG: I’d start at Trinosophes with a chai, the best in town, and a hearty breakfast. Then I’d get lost in John K. King Books, searching for hidden literary treasures. After that, I’d take a walk through the Arboretum Detroit or wander the Belle Isle Conservatory and Oudolf Garden Detroit, observing how the plants evolve through the seasons. I’d pause at Detroit’s Huckleberry Explorer’s Club in my neighborhood, and have all sorts of conversations with Stefany Anne Golberg and Morgan Meis, two of the most inspiring people I’ve met here, whose home and cardboard shrine museum always make me feel at home. A few hours at The Schvitz sauna would follow — it’s an absolute must. For dinner, I’d head to Sharaku (in West Bloomfield), an authentic Japanese restaurant. On the way, I’d stop along Woodward Avenue for a few donuts at Dutch Girl Donuts, either for the road or to save for later that night. If I stayed in Detroit for dinner instead, I’d go to Rose’s, which reopened after my book was published, and remains one of my all-time favorite spots. I’d end the day at Speaker Box. I love going there during the week. No other club really has much happening then, but Speaker Box always does. 
MORE INFORMATION:
“Soul of Detroit” is available online and locally at Michigan Central Station, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and area Barnes & Noble stores. jonglezpublishing.com
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