Hillcrest Elementary School

Kalamazoo Public Schools

New housing developments were coming up all over Kalamazoo after the turn of the twentieth century due primarily to a growing population. One of those new developments was Hillcrest, located to the south of Howard Street and to the east of Oakland Drive. Within two years of its creation in 1912, over twenty-five homes dotted the area, which doubled seven years later.

The neighborhood and community benefited in 1922 by the gift of 48 acres by Carolyn Hubbard Kleinstuck on the southern edge of Hillcrest. Originally part of her family’s farm, she donated it to the State of Michigan Board of Education. Named the Kleinstuck Preserve, after Carolyn’s husband, Carl, it continues to be a valuable resource in the community.

By 1925, residents of the area submitted a petition for a school due to the growing population of neighborhood children who would go to Vine Elementary or to the Training School operated by the Western State Normal School. An article in the Kalamazoo Gazette reported that the parents felt a new school was “imperative.”

By late September, a ballot issue passed giving approval to raise $85,000 for a new structure situated on the edge of the Kleinstuck Preserve on Cherry Street at the intersection of Brentwood Avenue. The architectural firm of Billingham and Cobb were chosen to design the building and local contractor Henry Vander Horst to construct it. Although said to follow the plan of Parkwood Elementary School, this building’s twin is West Main Elementary School at West Main and North Arlington Streets built at the same time as Hillcrest. Both are examples of Collegiate Gothic with buff-colored brick in addition to massive arched entrances located at both the east and west ends.

Hillcrest opened on Monday, January 31, 1927 for fifty-nine pupils in grades kindergarten through sixth although more students were expected. The two-story building contained seven classrooms and an auditorium with a total capacity of two hundred. In April, the school held a housewarming. At the start of the next school year, Miss Flora Roberts, Director of the Kalamazoo Public Library announced that a branch library would open at Hillcrest and West Main Schools for students and their parents. These sub branches as they were called would each have anywhere from 300 to 500 books to check out.

M.C.J. Billingham received the contract in 1955 to design an addition to this building. Constructed by the Ray Stevens Company to the west of the original structure, it contained a kindergarten room, office and clinic. By 1964, 179 students attended the school.

Hillcrest Elementary School, along with four others in the Kalamazoo Public School system, closed in 1971 due to a reorganization to help facilitate district-wide busing. Two years later, Western Michigan University leased the building for their Child Development Center, a day care and tutoring center operated by the Psychology Department. After their departure, the Kalamazoo County Head Start preschool program also used the building beginning in 1982 for the next four years.

In 1985, the Kazoo School, an independent school opened in 1973, purchased the building, offering education for grades kindergarten through eighth, continuing the main purpose of this structure to be a center for education and enrichment.

Compiled by Lynn Houghton, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, February 2008. Revised and updated June 2020