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Patch occasionally checks in with former residents, business owners and city officials to see what they are up to. If you have a former Royal Oaker you want to know about, e-mail judy.davids@patch.com.Dr. Lenny Hutton had been in practice for four years in 1987 when the in-vitro fertilization (IVF) program at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak referred a 34-year-old woman expecting quintuplets—make that America’s first test-tube quintuplets. “I was a little stunned when she showed up in my office with the pictures of five viable babies with five heartbeats,” Hutton, 59, said. Michele L'Esperance, a social worker and former model, conceived the babies with the help of Dr. S. Jan Behrman, chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Beaumont. Behrman, known as the grandfather of reproductive …
This month, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, a 2003 graduate of Dondero High School in Royal Oak, is seeing his dreams come true. His film Toy's House was selected for the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT. It's the culmination of lots of tenacity and ambition for the young director. Toy's House depicts three unhappy teenage boys who flee to the wilderness where they build a makeshift house and live off the land as masters of their own destiny, something of which Jordan Vogt-Roberts can relate. Master of his destiny Vogt-Roberts lived in a Royal Oak …
Over the years, a storefront on Washington—between the railroad tracks and Fourth Street—has been home to a string of diners and cafes—Cassia's, Café 317, Café Calypso, Café Muse, and What Crepe? “That place has been handed down, handed down, handed down—since the 1920s,” said Gary Brunner, 43. “You used to be able to buy train tickets and step out the back door. The slab to get on the train is still right there.” Brunner would know. He owned and operated Café 317 from 1997 to 2003. Moving up the kitchen ladder Growing up in Highland Park, Brunner learned how to cook from his grandmother and …
When County Executive L. Brooks Patterson offered Royal Oak’s former top cop the “opportunity of a lifetime” in 2009, Ted Quisenberry said it was hard to walk away from the town and department he led for more than eight years. “I have extremely fond memories and thoughts of Royal Oak,” said Quisenberry, “It’s an amazing place. You couldn’t find a better town to be the police chief of.” The job Patterson proposed was the top administrative position with Oakland County’s Homeland Security Division. The former chief said knew he should take take advantage of the offer. “I still have a soft spot…
