Dozens of Victorian mansions were built there during the final decades of the nineteenth century, and Brush Park was nicknamed "Little Paris" due to its elegant architecture.

[8] The neighborhood's heyday didn't last long, however: by the early twentieth century most of is affluent residents started moving to more modern, quieter districts, and Brush Park was quickly populated by members of Detroit's fast-growing working class.

[20] Beginning in the 1850s, entrepreneur Edmund Askin Brush, son of Elijah, began developing his family's property, located conveniently close to downtown, into a neighborhood for Detroit's elite citizens.

[5][18] The area was developed with care: the land directly facing Woodward Avenue was subdivided into large and expensive lots, soon occupied by religious buildings and opulent mansions rivaling those built along East Jefferson Avenue and West Fort Street, while the land to the east was partitioned into relatively smaller, fifty feet wide parcels.

Other early residents of Brush Park included lumber baron David Whitney Jr. and his daughter, Grace Whitney Evans; businessman Dexter M. Ferry; Joseph L. Hudson, founder of the eponymous department store; Fulton Iron Works founder Delos Rice; lumber baron Lucien S. Moore; banker Frederick Butler; merchant John P. Fiske; Dime Savings Bank president William Livingstone Jr.; and dry goods manufacturer Ransom Gillis.

[18] The neighborhood began to decline at the turn of the 20th century, when the advent of streetcars and then automobiles allowed prosperous citizens to live farther from downtown: early residents moved out, notably to up-and-coming districts such as Indian Village and Boston–Edison, and Brush Park became less fashionable.

[8] Throughout the subdivision, homes were converted to apartments or rooming houses – often with the construction of two- and three-story rear additions – to accommodate workers of the booming automobile industry,[18] and dozens of structures were razed for surface parking lots.

[18][29] The Great Depression and the racial tensions of the 1940s (part of the 1943 race riot took place in the streets of Brush Park)[27] led to a rapid deterioration of the neighborhood.

[32] The ambitious plan included restoring the surviving historic mansions and erecting modern residential buildings on the empty lots, but it was left unrealized due to disorganization.

[3] Despite these attempts to save what was left of the neighborhood's historic character, by the 1980s Brush Park had gradually fallen into a state of "nearly total abandonment and disintegration,"[5] gaining a poor reputation as one of Detroit's most derelict areas.

Several historic houses were stabilized and "mothballed" by the City of Detroit between 2005 and 2006, on the occasion of the Super Bowl XL played at the nearby Ford Field.

[38] The building, which was designed by Donaldson and Meier and dated back to 1890, represents one of the greatest losses in Brush Park's recent history, since it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

[39]Having confidence in the future of the city, he invested in real estate and was soon able to retire from mercantile life.The house was enlarged and transformed in rooming in 1910s and was abandoned in 1980s until it was bought in 2017 and has been being restored ever since.