Should Paddy Lynch decide to update his business cards anytime soon, what job title should go beneath his name?
Developer?
“Yes, I know some people have described me as a real estate developer, but I really don’t think that’s the case,” the Birmingham native muses. “I’m really not developing much at all.”
Preservationist?
“Yeah, I think that if anything, I’m a preservationist,” Lynch agrees. “For better or worse, I don’t love change, and I want to see things preserved. I think there’s something magical about the ability to kind of step back into time.”
At which point, a voice from the back of the Dakota Inn Rathskeller shouts, “How about ‘funeral director with a donut shop’?”
Well, it would be accurate. Lynch, 41, earned his mortuary science degree from Wayne State University and joined the family business as a third-generation funeral director at Lynch & Sons in Clawson, one of eight Lynch funeral homes throughout southeast Michigan. However, in recent years, he may be better known for buying and resurrecting some of Detroit’s most noteworthy and nostalgic properties, including Dutch Girl Donuts and, most recently, the 92-year-old Dakota Inn Rathskeller on John R Road.
His acquisition quest began in 2011 when Lynch bought the historic Stanley Kresge Mansion in Arden Park for $125,000 and then launched a 10-year renovation of the home
“I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into,” he says with a wry smile, seated near the bar of his latest purchase. “But thank God I had enough stupidity to pull it off.”
With experience comes wisdom. Lynch went on to buy Detroit’s legendary bath house The Schvitz in 2017; purchase the former Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth convent on Mound Road five years later (and transform it into an arts and wellness center called The Convent); acquire the beloved Dutch Girl shop on Woodward in 2023; and, now, purchase the Dakota Inn.
But why these particular landmarks? Does Lynch have some personal or emotional connection to them?
“I got that question recently for the first time, so I gave it some thought,” he reflects. “All these projects, I do have a personal connection to. I was a regular at The Schvitz — used to hang out there — and it had fallen on majorly hard times. It was barely holding on, and I didn’t want to see it totally collapse or go into probate or something, right?
“My dad had been going into Dutch Girl since he was a young man, because my mom went to Marygrove [College] and he would stop there after he dropped her off. When I moved to Detroit, Woodward became my commute to the funeral home, and I would drive by Dutch Girl every day. Half of those days, I’d stop and get a dozen for the staff. Similarly, here at the Dakota, I’ve been coming in for years with friends.”
And such friendships are often where Lynch’s two business worlds collide. “I grew up an Irish Catholic kid, but our funeral connections have led to some interesting relationships,” he explains. “One reason I was able to buy the Dakota is because we’ve had such a strong relationship with Our Shepherd Lutheran Church in Birmingham. Being the good German Lutherans that they are, the clergy and staff hang out here. They introduced me to the owner. My cousin buried everybody from the Dutch Girl family at the funeral home in Walled Lake. They had almost 30 applications to buy the shop, but most of them wanted to shut down that location, buy the name, and move the store.”
Lynch pauses. “I’m actually not that interested in purchasing anything I don’t have a relationship with,” he says. “Because I feel like I probably would not do the job it needs. I think there’s something to be said for knowing the past and getting tapped into some institutional knowledge.”
Lynch’s own past is fascinating as well. The Brother Rice High School grad played football at Boston College, where he earned All-ACC academic honors and graduated cum laude. Intrigued by the Jesuit interpretations of religion, he decided to double major in theology and English. Upon graduation, Lynch moved to Haiti, where he taught English and computer literacy to orphans and assisted Mother Teresa’s order, the Missionaries of Charity. And while he insists his father never pressured him to follow the family vocation, Lynch says his Haiti experience motivated him to enter Wayne State’s mortuary science program.
“Haiti devastated me on multiple levels,” he recalls. “Not just the poverty, of course, and the suffering there, but the sense of helplessness that you feel was very crippling for me. But now, when I have to walk into a room with the family of a dead child, or someone who decided to take their life at 25, in some ways I feel that experience prepared me. I’ve been back to Haiti twice since that first visit.”
Longtime visitors to the Dakota Inn may notice some significant changes this fall under Lynch’s ownership. The basement level — the true rathskeller — will be utilized for the first time in years. The building’s backyard will become a biergarten once again, serving beer and food, with a large tent to be added during Oktoberfest. And the Dakota Inn will live up to its name for the first time ever: The upstairs apartments, originally inhabited by members of the Kurz family that founded the business, will be made available for overnight lodging.
“The head waitress worked here 34 years, and she’d never seen the apartments,” Lynch marvels. “The family was very private. Some people may take advantage of [the rooms] come Oktoberfest.”
Lynch says there may be at least one more acquisition in his immediate future, but details were still being negotiated. “My wife [Nhu Truong] claims she’s jinxing herself,” he says with a smile, “because every time she says, ‘No more buildings, no more projects,’ something comes along and she’ll say, ‘This is a very special place.’ It’s all kind of serendipitous, you know?”
This story originally appeared in the October 2025 issue of Hour Detroit magazine. To read more, pick up a copy of Hour Detroit at a local retail outlet. Click here to get our digital edition.
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