Berberian Woods Nature Preserve

01 / The story of this place

Make time for these

Ara Berberian grew up in Detroit, the son of Armenian immigrants, and took an unusual path to opera: he pitched briefly in the minor leagues for a Kansas City Athletics farm team before switching to singing in his mid-twenties. He built an international career as a bass, and from 1979 to 1997 he was a fixture at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, giving 334 performances in more than a hundred different roles before retiring from the stage. Berberian died in 2005, and the city of Southfield, working with the Oakland Land Conservancy, later set aside a tract of wooded land in his honor as the Berberian Woods Nature Preserve. Tucked behind a residential street between Twelve Mile and Lahser roads, the preserve protects a stretch of mature forest and wetland as a quiet green space for the community he came from.

1. Named for Detroit-born opera bass Ara Berberian (1930–2005)
2. Berberian sang 334 performances at the Metropolitan Opera, 1979 to 1997
3. Donated to Southfield through the Oakland Land Conservancy
4. Protects mature woods and wetland in a residential part of Southfield