Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

The 'Gold Coast' of Detroit is a lovely part of the city.

It's bordered by the Detroit River and East Jefferson Avenue. Belle Isle is just to the west. It's home to many of the distinct riverfront apartment buildings, and Indian Village is north across Jefferson. There also are parks, including boat docks at Henderson Park.

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

The Berry Subdivision Historic District is at the eastern end of it.

None of the 80 or so houses there are more than a two-block walk to the river. Many of the lots were never built on, giving the area a spacious fell. And the homes are both large and high value: In the 2000 census, the neighborhood was designated as the most expensive in the city, with a median value of $300,000.

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

Neighbors here include Mayor Mike Duggan.

The Manoogian Mansion, the city-owned residence designated for the mayor of Detroit, is on two acres on Dwight Street. It was built in 1928 and donated to the city in 1969. It's 4,000 square feet and backs to the Detroit River.

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Eric Lacy/MLive.com

And Kid Rock lives at the other end of the block.

The singer from Macomb County bought the 6,000-square-foot house in 2012 for about $460,000. He added a new, attached garage and boathouse to the property. According to a previous interview, he said: "I have a nice neighborhood, and with a historic home."

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From the Detroit Land Bank

All of that makes this house shocking.

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

This is 325 Fiske.

This is another view of it, shot this week on my visit to the street - well before the greenery covers the front of it again.

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

It's abandoned and heading to auction.

As with all Detroit Land Bank houses put up for auction, the property will start at a $1,000 opening bid. The land bank is selling a house in Detroit every day at a similar auction, as it deals with the 90,000 abandoned properties turned over to its control. Some houses are sold for fixed prices; some are fixed up; some are torn down. Auction homes are said to be salvagable.

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

The house was built in 1925.

It's part of an era in Detroit, before the Great Depression, when a lot of money flowed in the city. People built grand houses as the population grew due to the rise of the automobile. This house is only 1.4 miles from the Ossian Sweet house on Garland, where in 1925 the black doctor had to defend himself when a white mob protested his move into the neighborhood.

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

It looks like it should be elegant.

The house has 2,000 square feet of space and 3.5 bathrooms, according to the Land Bank. For some reason, no listing mentions the number of bedrooms. I'd guess at least four, plus one on the third floor. The photo shows the third floor window. There's also a fireplace and a garage.

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From the Detroit Land Bank

Yet this house is as rough as it gets on a rehab.

Here's the kitchen. Lots of debris. Not much - if anything - worth saving.

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From the Detroit Land Bank

There's debris. And mold.

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From the Detroit Land Bank

Then there's this.

This used to be a staircase. And yes, that's sunlight pouring through the roof.

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From the Detroit Land Bank

This photo shows black metal scrollwork.

That could be an interesting detail worth salvaging.

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From the Detroit Land Bank

Some tile peeks through here.

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

But in a neighborhood where you can see the Detroit River ...

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

... And where Kid Rock's house is visible from the back porch

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

... and the Manoogian Mansion is so close...

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

How can this house be this bad?

Windows aren't boarded up. There is no blue tarp on the roof. I saw no signs of fire or anyone getting inside. So it could be worse.

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

This auction won't be its first.

'BelieveInTheD' paid $69,200 for this house in 2012 at the county tax foreclosure auction. The ownership entity changed three times after that.

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

It also had an earlier Land Bank run.

A buyer bid $35,900 on Dec. 12. A month earlier, the same buyer had gone head to head with a bidder, who took the contest up to $63,100. But these potential buyers didn't take it to closing, either. Here's a photo of landscaping of years past.

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Cost v. reward is an epic battle in this house.

Consider: Online estimates place this home's value at $200,000-plus. The location and neighborhood are solid. Yet the Land Bank has esimates of over $300,000 on repairs. And they'll have to be done to historic district standards.

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I didn't learn much more about this house.

I knocked on neighbors' doors, but got no response. One article from last November said the house's architects were Donaldson & Meier, the firm that also designed the David Stott Building and the Penobscott Building downtown. That's pretty cool, I think. It's also close to River House Coop, where there were construction work crews on site this week.

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

This neighborhood has value.

Everyone knows the beautiful homes in Boston Edison and Indian Village, but this neighborhood was also built to impress. And the houses still do that. Their estimated values go up to $500,000 - a good price for Detroit. This house at 503 Parkview is listed now for $279,000. It needs cosmetic work, but nothing to the scale of the Fiske house.

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

The auction will tell us if 325 still has value, too.

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Paula Gardner | PaulaGardner@mlive.com

Here are some more recent stories about Detroit real estate.

Look inside one Detroit block's lone vacant house. It's for sale.

This library built in 1925 was saved from demolition by the Detroit police

See an extreme fixer-upper in Detroit's Mexicantown

Walk through an adorable, and affordable, home in Detroit

This Detroit home up for auction looks like a great fixer-upper, but there's one problem