In a series profiling musicians and projects in Southeast Michigan, Local Spins writer Enrique Olmos spotlights the work of Great Alexander and his ambitious Greater Impact House.
Believing In a Dream: Alexander Vlachos outside Greater Impact House in Detroit. (Photo/Loren Johnson)
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In the shadow of a muscular Detroit skyline, a row of vacant houses sits stoically along Hogarth Street. Some are crumbling. Many are overtaken by long grass. Most of them are boarded up at the windows.
The block is eerily silent … especially for being in the heart of a major metropolitan area.
It’s the “Detroit” that comes to mind for those who’ve never visited the city, but have watched reels of its crumbling architecture on episodes of Anthony Bourdain.
The thing is, this Detroit still exists. The city is perpetually healing itself with every passing day. There’s an evident rhythm here, a steady pulse that perseveres through hardship. It’s a place of dogged resilience.
Amid the weeds and ghostly silhouettes of peaked rooftops on Hogarth Street, there’s one home that embodies the notion of healing and rebuilding: Greater Impact House, located at 3738 Hogarth St., will soon be a creative refuge for musicians and artists.
Finding Anchors Through Music: Vlachos (Photo/Loren Johnson)
It already is for Alexander Vlachos, who steps out onto a decrepit front porch to welcome me inside.
“I’m so thankful that you’re here,” he says warmly, before ushering me inside for a tour of the interior, which frankly, is in rough shape at the moment, yet strikingly beautiful and in repair.
“This house, every two or three years that I’ve owned it, there were always things to fix. Leaking water damage was a big one that you can kind of see. Water damaged floors, ceilings. In my head, I’m like, ‘this is a nightmare. I don’t know how I’m gonna do this.’ And at the same time, the right amount of funds would come in each year so that I could sustain the idea. I was consumed by the idea of making it work,” says Vlachos.
“And the things that really cut it short was all the weird stuff that was happening with the pandemic and me going through my own traumas like losing my sister. So all that stuff compounded. I didn’t know how I was gonna acquire more capital. That’s why I’m reaching out to gain support and sell a dream. How does anything get made? By people believing in it.”
Vlachos purchased the home in 2018 for $5,400, fulfilling his vision to curate a space for creatives to hide away and do the work they’re best at. A musician himself, who performs under the moniker Greater Alexander, Vlachos has spent the last four years repairing, rebuilding and raising funds to get Greater Impact House up and running fulltime.
CREATING A SOBER SPACE FOR MUSICIANS, PAINTERS AND WRITERS
We start with a tour of the interior of the home — a sprawling three-level floor plan with endearing eccentricities that come with a 111-year-old house. As soon as we step inside, we’re welcomed by a beautiful baby grand piano with a dark brown finish and original ivory keys.
We ascend up the stairs to the second floor, complete with an expansive living space, bedrooms and a kitchen. As we go, Vlachos points through the windows that overlook the neighborhood. He aims his finger at an empty lot, explaining that the house that once stood there was burnt to the ground. One of the first times Vlachos stayed in the house, he was awoken by a morning police raid a couple of houses down.
“But I haven’t really felt concerned, so to speak,” Vlachos says. “That’s more so I’m just observing and just creating a space alongside the other foreclosed bank homes. It’s just interesting to just observe how people act when they see an empty street like this,” Vlachos says.
‘An Important Project for the City’: Vlachos (Photo/Loren Johnson)
“There’s people that come around and just dump garbage on the street or in the yards. But that’s kind of the challenge that opposes Greater Impact House. When you have an empty street like this or a desolate block where work is kind of like being done, there’s still so many empty houses that somebody can just come by within a second and dump tons of whatever debris.”
Greater Impact House will be a fully sober space. Vlachos plans to live here fulltime, and will eventually welcome musicians, painters and writers year-round. The space will host artist residencies, art galleries and concerts.
In April, Greater Impact House hosted a 48-hour online concert to raise funds to renovate the front porch. Nearly $6,000 was raised for the repairs.
A year after purchasing the house, his younger sister took her life. The pandemic followed closely after, and progress on Greater Impact House slowed.
“You can’t try to sleep the trauma away, as opposed to like, shake it out of you, right? Because that’s what happens when you become traumatized, all you want to do is sleep it off. And there’s no sleeping off trauma,” says Vlachos.
“Just the idea that you can’t take a thorn out of your side unless you actually take the time to initiate the movement. That’s what started happening for me. I found all these anchors, and I was really thankful to find it through music.”
As Greater Alexander, Vlachos has released three records, including the arrestingly beautiful 2012 release, “Positive Love.” His new record, “Let Love In,” which will include both instrumentals and singer-songwriter elements, is set to release in the fall. A portion of it was written on the piano at Greater Impact House.
VIDEO: Greater Alexander, “Grandpa’s Teeth”
There’s work yet to do on the space. After making the porch and stage accessible for those with disabilities, further repairs include gutting out and adding new insulation/drywall to five rooms with water damage, new wood flooring for three rooms, a new laundry room with disabled accessibility on the first floor, gutting and insulating the third floor to transform it into a small indoor venue.
Beyond that, there are two bathrooms to redo, three kitchen renovations, planting a garden. There are also plans for a second and third-floor walk-out balcony and a sunroom hosting area. Vlachos hopes to begin living at the house fulltime in the fall and opening the space up for daytime use and dinner meetings.
“I think it’s an important project for the city. I wanted it to be close to the city, close enough where it’s kind of outside of the bubble of these huge high rises and complexes. You can essentially go just one block out of all of this; it can essentially become a renter that’s investing in the city, as opposed to one that’s giving it to these huge high-rise companies,” says Vlachos.
“And that was kind of what my main objective was. Even as an alumnus of Wayne State University, to see how close I was to the university. I just became more inspired by what potential rebuilding could happen. You just see all this desolation that occurred and I just wanted to be part of something like a renaissance.”
PHOTO GALLERY: Alexander Vlachos and Greater Impact House
Photos by Loren Johnson
