Defer Elementary School

The George Defer Elementary School is significant as an example of the Tudor Revival architectural style that was immensely popular in the 1920s. Tudor Revival was one of a number of Romantic Revival styles used in suburban residential and public buildings and is symbolic of the prosperity and rapid growth that Detroit, and other cities across the country, experienced due to the rise of industrialism following World War One. Defer Elementary is also significant for its very purpose: to serve as a building to educate the children in Grosse Pointe. Defer Elementary was the first school building erected after five fractional districts consolidated into Rural District No. 1, renamed Grosse Pointe Public School District in 1921. Listed as local site number 1995 on the State Register of Historic Sites in August of 1996, Defer Elementary is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion A and C.

The George Defer Elementary School is located in Grosse Pointe Park, a suburb of the city of Detroit. Completed in 1924, Defer Elementary is the oldest public school building still in use in the Grosse Pointe Public School district. The building was designed by Detroit architect George J. Haas, and was the first school building constructed after five fractional districts consolidated into Rural Agricultural District No. 1, renamed the Grosse Pointe Public School District in 1921. Once a rhubarb patch located on the Ludwig Meininger Farm, the tree-lined schoolyard fronts Kercheval Street and is bounded on the west by the five-block commercial district known as 'Kercheval in the Park.' Opposite the school to the south stand the Grosse Pointe Park Public Library and Pierce Middle School, while residential neighborhoods lie to the east and north. Consistent with school design and construction of the 1920s, the three-story, rectangular plan, Tudor Revival school is of masonry construction and sits on a concrete slab foundation. The roof is also a concrete slab covered with built-up bituminous membrane. The exterior walls are of cinder-raked face brick with limestone detailing. Decorative features on the school building include a semi-hexagonal, three-story limestone bay window with a crenellated parapet, wood-paneled Gothic arched doors topped with Gothic arched transoms, decorative tracery windows, limestone door and window surrounds, modified stone buttresses, and decorative carved stone panels. The casement windows are divided after the English style, with steel mullions and muntin bars. On the interior, the kindergarten room contains both a fireplace and a drinking fountain of Pewabic tile, manufactured at Pewabic Pottery in Detroit.