Lathrup Village Historic District

Lathrup Village, platted largely in the 1924-25 period and developed for the most part between then and the death of the community's developer, Louise Lathrup Kelley, in 1963, was conceived as a model suburban community. The Lathrup Village Historic District is comprised of the larger part of Lathrup Village, including the entire area developed by 1963. The district is important under the themes of community planning and development, and social history within the context of the Detroit metropolitan area as a large-scale model real estate development planned for upwardly-mobile middle-class residents and intended from the outset to be a community with civic (including church and school), commercial and residential components. The district's plan of curvilinear streets with geometric focal points and small park areas where streets intersected is a very large-scale Michigan embodiment of early twentieth-century planning concepts seen in the Country Club district in Kansas City and other exclusive neighborhoods across the nation. Built in accordance with Louise Lathrup Kelley's minimum cost restrictions and requirements for masonry exteriors and low profiles, Lathrup Village's houses reflect high quality design and construction in a broad range of middle- class housing styles of the 1925-1963 era, including Colonial and Neo-Tudor. Much of the district's housing stock was built in the years after World War II down to Louise Lathrup Kelley's death in 1963. The post-war houses, mostly substantial ranch houses, form, because of their low profiles and exclusively masonry-wall construction, a continuation of the village's and district's high quality architecture and aesthetic character first developed in the 1920s.

The period of significance for the district is defined as dating from 1924 to 1963 for reasons pertaining to the criteria above. 1924 appears to have been the point in time at which all the original platting of the district came about, and is certainly the year that the first house was constructed in the district. All of this initial planning was directed by Louise Lathrup, who controlled the construction, architectural identity and ordinances in the community until its incorporation as a city in 1953 ; and who continued to control all undeveloped land in the city until her death in 1963. The period of significance, therefore, is the period during which the district was essentially controlled by this remarkable woman. This coincides with the greatest degree of continuity in the development of the city-so that from the first Colonial Revival Cape Cod of 1925 through the most striking ranch house of the early 1960s, there is a detennination to retain appropriate relationships between individual buildings and the community. In some instances, goals stated by the developer in 1925 are best reflected in the ranches of the 1950s. This type of consistency of approach is rare in real estate development.

To understand the achievement of Louise Lathrup and Lathrup Village, it is important first to define an historic context for the evolution of the community. It is surprising to find that a relatively vague historic portrait has been painted of the area that comprises and surrounds Lathrup Village. Southfield, the closest neighbor to Lathrup Village, is named after the township that gave way to the incorporated cities of Southfield, Lathrup Village and others. Southfield the city plays such a dominant role in shaping the character of the northern Detroit metropolitan area that it is natural to assume that this role of dominance is historical. Nothing, however, could be farther from the truth, and research has revealed that much of the historical development in the region took place well away from Southfield, and that in many respects the development of Southfield was slow and relatively unremarkable. When development began in earnest, however, well into the twentieth century, it was at a remarkable pace.

SOUTHFIELD TOWNSHIP

The first land entries were made in Southfield Township in 1821, but it appears that no settlement took place until the following year, when John Daniels established a homestead in the southwest portion of section 4, in the far north section of the township. Sporadic settlement took place shortly thereafter in sections 7 and 18, each settlement characterized by its proximity to water. The township is fed by a number of tributaries of the River Rouge, which drains to the Detroit River, and hence settlers were able to find numerous distinct sources of water for their new farmsteads.

Settlement was still slow, however, as it was in virtually all of Michigan, until after 1825 and the opening of the Erie Canal. From this point on Michigan was viewed as viable for homesteading, and land barons and governments alike aggressively marketed available land to people in the east. Frustrated by the relative reluctance of the land out east to produce fruitful crops, farmers in particular were drawn to Michigan by stories of the richness of the land. This would begin the real settlement of Michigan, and

records indicate that the first major wave of settlers did not come to Michigan from Europe, but from New York, Connecticut or Massachusetts.

It should be noted, however, that this influx of settlers did not immediately have a major impact on Southfield Township. The majority of settlers who made their way to Oakland County, found their homes more or less along the routes of the Saginaw and Grand River trails. Beginning in 1818, in the wake of the War of 1812, the federal government gradually began to convert Indian trails to military roads.

The first of the military, or Territorial roads in Southfield Township followed the path of the Shiawassee Trail in the southwest section of the township. In 1832, however, the legislature ordered

that a Territorial road shall be laid out and established, running from ... the north line of section 18, in the township of 1 Southfield ... on the most direct and eligible road to the city ofDetroit.

This road, which follows a portion of the Grand River Trail over what are now Berg Road and a portion of Franklin Road, significantly connected the settlers of the township with Detroit, which improved the prospects of the settlers.

The county seat at Pontiac made the Saginaw Trail the major route through the county into Detroit, and therefore produced the greatest degree of settlement. Then after 1847, when Lansing was named the new state capital, traffic and development along the south branch of the Grand River trail increased dramatically.

Consistently, since its beginnings, the nortl1 branch of the Grand River Trail through Southfield was less traveled than either of these other routes, and the development along its route was somewhat slower. Enough settlers had established homesteads in Southfield Township, however, that villages began to emerge. In section 6 of the township, land had been purchased on the east side of the trail by Dilucena Stoughton in 1824, and a year later on the west side by Elijah Bullock, precipitating a settlement known as the Stoughton Bullock Settlement. In 1828 the settlement was renamed Franklin by its first postmaster, Dr. Ebenezer Raynale, a Pennsylvanian. 2

Mr. Bullock had opened the first business in the township in 1825, a blacksmith shop, which would be essential to the encouragement of settlement, and which would to a degree ensure the viability of a community at Franklin. Dr. Raynale, in addition to his role as postmaster, was the first physician in the township, and in 1828, which appears as a watershed year in the life of the village, witnessed the opening of the first school in the village.

Franklin Village was not, however, the only settlement to emerge in the township. Southfield, or Southfield Centre, emerged as a village of sorts in the late 1820s:

In 1829 Archibald H. Green made the first settlement in the northern part of the old village, and in 1833 the number of families who had located there and in the vicinity warranted the establishment of the post office of Southfield, with John Thomas as postmaster. He also ran the tavern, and near it several stores were soon started. In 1837 Sabin's gristmill was built on the Rouge a few rods west of the village, and was one of the first causes which brought business to Southfield. The following year, a flour mill was erected in the village; but neither of these industries, nor any other causes, were sufficient to 3 start the Thomas settlement, of Southfield, on an up-grade.

Slight variations exist of this account. In his book Michigan Place Names, Walter Romig suggests that the original post office did indeed open in 1833, but was located at Crawford Corners, on or near the holdings of Abraham Crawford. This location would appear to have been located near the intersection of present-day Ten Mile and Lahser roads, approximately one mile from the village of Southfield. Romig states:

but the water power afforded by the River Rouge favored the Southfield site, and business as well as a post office moved 4 there about 1838; this post office operated until March 15, 1904.

The area once known as Southfield, or Southfield Centre, remains in evidence, commonly known as the Burgh, at the intersection of Civic Center Drive and Berg Road, along the old Grand River Trail. It is memorialized by the old township hall and Southfield Cemetery as its original residents.

Most surprisingly, settlement of these two villages comprises virtually the entire history of organized settlement in Southfield 5 Township for nearly one hundred years. As evidenced by the following census figures, population of the township was essentially static, if not actually in decline:

1845 census 1,240 persons 1850 1,658 1880 1,940 1890 1,444 1900 1,378 1910 1,288 1920 1,319 1930 3,174

The boom which is suggested as starting with the 1930 census figures can be directly attributed to the first years of development in Lathrup Village, which represents the beginning of the modem age in Southfield Township.

Well off the path beaten by the territorial roads, the land that eventually became Lathrup Village appears to have first been settled in 1826, when Christopher Barnhart arrived and settled the northeast comer of section 23, which would correspond with land to the south and west of the intersection of Eleven Mile Road and Southfield Road. By 1830, this land had been taken over by Caleb Hodge, who expanded his holdings north of Eleven Mile Road to claim the southeast quarter of section 14.

Historical maps, including specifically those of one of the original surveyors of the area, Bela Hubbard, prepared in 1822, indicate that the eastern half of the township, including Lathrup Village, was significantly underserved by water. Further, Hubbard's survey notes indicate that the western township lands were sand and loam, whereas the Lathrup Village area was largely clay soil beneath heavy timber. As much as anything, this is likely the reason that development in the eastern township was slower.

Timber was cleared, however, and soils were improved, and starting in 1832 the government began to lay out sectional roads, corresponding to the present-day system of mile-roads. Gradually, therefore, the eastern half of Southfield Township became more integrated into the life of the region. Its proximity to Royal Oak to the east and Birmingham to the north were in part responsible for this integration; but the railroad was the real source of connection.

Main lines of the railroad appear not to have played a role in the development of eastern Southfield, or really any part of the township to a major degree. But the railroad did run from Detroit through Royal Oak and into Birmingham by 1839. Shortly thereafter was established a stage coach which ran from Birmingham through Franklin and Southfield Centre. The stage also stopped at Beddow, a defunct settlement that for a time stood along Eleven Mile Road between Evergreen and Lahser roads, within shouting distance of Lathrup Village. This meant that the area residents were connected to the city in a more modem way, even though an excursion could still be daunting. Residents of the eastern township were further connected through Berkley, immediately to the east, which had stage coach service as early as 1832. NPS Form 1~900-a OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 (S-86)

The railroad, however, was a much more broadly developed system, and much a more rapidly expanding one, which provided relatively quick connections to much of the country; its development removed another barrier between the development of Detroit and the development of south Oakland County.

Eventually, the railroad system expanded to include the interurban system that criss-crossed the county extensively by 1900. Brought together under the name Detroit United Urban Railway in 1901, the interurban corresponded to the dawn of the modern age in suburban Detroit, and essentially ended the age of the stagecoach. The stagecoach through Franklin and Southfield ran as late as 1901, but gave way to progress; as the interurban created interest in a new type of suburban development, which would transform Oakland County with tremendous speed; which would increase again with the expansion of the automotive industry.

THE 1WENTIETH CENTURY

The primary development that swept the southern townships of Oakland County into the twentieth century actually took place in Wayne County, on farmlands outside of Detroit, near the village of Highland Park.

In 1909 Henry Ford announced that he would expand his automotive production facilities beyond the small factory he operated at Brush and Piquette in Detroit. The Highland Park plant began production in 1910, although it would not be complete until 1914; and its opening precipitated a land rush of tremendous proportions, which spread throughout northern Wayne County and into Oakland County. The importance of the factory to industrial history is outlined in Dexter Ferry's omnibus Buildings ofDetroit:

The story of the Highland Park plant was one of the most brilliant chapters in American industrial history. Here mass production techniques were perfected as never before and here the moving assembly line was first introduced. . . The institution of the five-dollar day in 1914 was an unprecedented demonstration of advanced labor policy, but the most significant contribution of the Ford Motor Company was the impetus it gave to the democratization of the automobile. In 6 doing so it transcended the boundaries of mere business enterprise to become a factor in the transformation of modern life.

Modern life indeed, and specifically the modern suburb was generated by Ford's action. It was customary in the days before expressways for people to live near their place of employment, so the opening of the Highland Park plant created a large-scale relocation of employees already working for Ford, in addition to creating a demand for housing for the thousands of new employees who would be hired in the years ahead.

What had been farmland was now transformed into neighborhoods housing a total of 46,000 new residents who moved to Highland Park and Hamtramck in the five years following Ford's announced move. The City of Detroit moved quickly to annex land in the vicinity and add it to their tax rolls; and the expansion of the city would have extended into Oakland County if it had not been for the former community ofUrbanrest, which incorporated as Ferndale in 1917, and cut the Detroit expansion off at the Eight Mile Road border.

Throughout south Oakland County, the ripple effect of this development was felt:

Developers began to run out of easily available space to fill the need for new homes, and they saw opportunity to the north. Plat after plat was subdivided in that rapidly opening section. Royal Oak Township saw 3,000 acres platted in 1916 alone, more than twice the space that had been subdivided in all Oakland County before 1910.7

Such expansion continued through the 1920s, as the industry that Ford drove expanded well beyond his holdings. The population of southeast Michigan grew by nearly 900,000 people during the 1920s, and this figure included more than 600,000 people who had relocated to the region from elsewhere, the majority of whom would find employment in the automotive industries. Of the 270,000 new homes built in the Detroit area in the 1920s, more than 35,000 of them were in Oakland County, which doubled the housing (~6)

stock that had existed at the start of the decade.

New communities began to emerge to lend some order to this mass of development:

Population and new developments bred new towns at a record rate. Eight new municipalities were incorporated--Berkley, Clawson, Oak Park, Sylvan Lake, Huntington Woods, Bloomfield Hills, Orchard Lake and Lake Angelus. Most of the other unincorporated developments came under annexation by Pontiac, Ferndale and Royal Oak. Thus expanded, Pontiac jumped from the thirteenth ranking city in Michigan to sixth. Royal Oak and Ferndale, not even ranked earlier among the state's 8 municipalities, became the eighteenth and nineteenth in size.

Suddenly, Southfield Township, which had seemed so isolated in the years of the nineteenth century, found itself on the edge of rampant development. However, it was still difficult to get to Southfield, since the system of roads had not expanded at the same pace as the population, and much like in the earlier years of the community, Southfield would have to wait until it was accessible for a boom to really begin.

ROADS

All these cars being produced meant that people were eager to hit the road, but in many locations the roads in place to serve them were barely adequate. As settlement in the nineteenth century was dictated by proximity to water and trail, twentieth century development would be based on how close land was to an improved road. As noted earlier, the development of sectional roads began as early as 1832, but in the early twentieth century many of these remained as essentially paths, and could hardly be considered to accommodate the automobile. The urgency of this can be understood by noting that in 1919 there were 19,000 registered automobiles in Oakland County, by 1925 that number had increased to more than 40,000.

Various governmental agencies responded to this situation with legislation and planning. In 1909, the first mile of concrete highway in the United States was created on Woodward Avenue between Six and Seven Mile roads; by 1916, the road was paved with a sixteen foot wide strip of concrete from Detroit to Pontiac. The state had authorized counties to create road commissions in 1893, but Oakland County did not act to do so until1913, so no concerted effort had been made to make sense of the needs and capabilities of the road system.

Private citizens, in fact, began to take the reins that government was leaving slack. In 1916, Burnette Stephenson purchased a narrow plot of land nearly thirteen miles in length, from Nevada Street near the Ford and Dodge plants in Detroit stretching north to Square Lake Road in Oakland County. Having acquired the land, he turned it over to the Oakland County Road Commission to develop as the Stephenson Highway, which was a forerunner to the I-75 expressway. By 1921, the highway was largely completed.

In 1916, the City Plan Improvement Commission of the City of Detroit produced what it called a "Tentative Sketch for a Metropolitan System of Parks and Boulevards," and it, more than the efforts of the Oakland County commission, lays the groundwork for what would eventually develop in Oakland County. Their documents clearly indicate the dominance of Woodward and Grand River avenues in the road network of the western metropolitan area; and uses these roads as building blocks, proposing that they be supported by the addition of several new roads which would eventually emerge as Hamilton Road and Outer Drive in Detroit, and Northwestern Highway cutting diagonally through Oakland County past the village ofFranklin.9

It would appear that everyone was taking a proactive approach except for the Oakland County Road Commission, but this is not necessarily the case. The Oakland County commission had to compete for state funding with many other commissions, and was doled out funds to construct only a small number of roads on an annual basis. Much of their efforts, therefore, went toward solving the most immediate problems. (8-86}

In 1919, the Commission completed work on paving Franklin Road through Bloomfield and Southfield townships, to provide a "new 10 route to the City of Detroit via Long Lake Road and the Seven Mile or Grand River roads," in much the same spirit as the old territorial road had been completed. At the same time, various patches of roads in Southfield Township were proposed or nearing completion. These included Lahser Road from Eleven Mile Road to Twelve Mile Road, and then Twelve Mile eastward to Evergreen Road.

In 1925, the Commission reported a major shift in emphasis for the region, and heralded

Creation of a joint super-highway commission which has been approved and financed by the boards of su~rvisors of Wayne 1 and Oakland Counties is a step in advance looking toward intelligent co-operation in building highways.

This effort united the efforts of the planners of Detroit and Oakland County, so that their work would seamlessly link the city and its suburbs. The goal of these agencies would be the implementation of a network of super-highways and ultimately expressways. The Stephenson Highway and Wider Woodward Avenue were integrated with proposals for major new roads, including Eleven Mile Road in Oakland County; Dequindre Road along the Macomb/Oakland border; Northwestern Highway, which emerged as a formal proposal in 1926; and most important to the fates of Lathrup Village, a superhighway was proposed along Southfield Road and a new road called Sunset Boulevard was proposed which would stretch from the intersection of Eight Mile Road and Wyoming in Royal Oak Township, diagonally to the intersection of Maple Road and Telegraph Road in Bloomfield Township.

Sunset Boulevard was never developed except for the portion which exists in Lathrup Village, indicating that as Lathrup was planned it was fully intended that it be integrated into the regional highway planning. Why Sunset Boulevard was never completed is not clear from Road Commission records. In 1930, the contract for construction of the road from Eight Mile to Twelve Mile Road was awarded to R.O. Baker of Royal Oak, with the. intention of constructing a road 220 feet wide from Eight to Eleven Mile, and forty feet in width on to Twelve Mile Road. It was anticipated that this work would be completed in 1931, but this never 12 transpired.

Another road which may have been planned with a greater scope than implemented was Goldengate Drive, which was completed in Lathrup Village, but according to publications created by the Lathrup interests was intended to extend to Lahser Road north of Eight Mile Road. There is no indication that the county ever intended this construction, and it does not appear in any of the superhighway plans. It was however, apparently a logically configured plan, since it coincided with the right-of-way of the Imperial Pipe Line Company, according to a 1925 map of the area.13

Southfield Road, however, is another matter. Much like Woodward Avenue in 1910, Southfield Road began to be of interest in the 1920s, again due to the efforts of Henry Ford. As the Ford empire expanded beyond the capacity of the Highland Park plant, Ford conceived reorganizing his factories into an autonomous plant nearer to the Detroit River, and nearer his homestead at Dearborn. In 1919 work began on the Ford Rouge Plant, which shifted some of the industrial energy of the region downriver. Much of the population, however, was still in residence in Oakland County, so a connecting artery became necessary: Southfield Road.

By 1925, the road was developed enough that the Detroit Motorbus Company integrated it into its network of routes. Part of the Birmingham Route, Southfield Road was the central connection between the Oakland Hills Country Club and downtown Detroit; starting at the country club, running down Maple Road to Southfield Road, where the route turned south to Seven Mile Road, where it headed east to Second Avenue, and then south to downtown. At the Ford Highland Park plant, the route intersected with what was known as the Ford Factories Route, which connected the Rouge Plant with the Highland Park Plant. Interestingly, another of the routes of the Detroit Motorbus Company commenced at Dexter Boulevard and Lawrence Avenue, the site of one of the Lathrup family's developments, and carried passengers to a ferry across the Detroit River to Windsor, Ontario.14

By 1927, considerable progress had been made on Southfield Road, or Emerson Road, as it originally was known:

A 204-foot project extending from Eight Mile Road to Birmingham, a distance of six and a half miles. Right-of-way has been dedicated for practically the entire length, and has been handled by the Southfield Park Improvement Association. A 20-foot pavement now stretches over that distance. This action taken by the Southfield Park Improvement Association was 15 indeed, a notable step and is worthy of our appreciation and admiration.

Southfield Road was immediately integrated into the network of the county when Ten Mile Road was paved westward from Southfield Road to Orchard Lake Road, to bring traffic from the Farmington area to the superhighway. The urgency of these building programs is seen in the fact that within two years, in September of 1929, Greenfield Road, then known as Division Road, 16 was opened "to relieve congestion on Coolidge and Southfield roads."

It was within this highly complex context of development that Lathrup Village would emerge. What this really means is that it was into this environment that Louise Lathrup would bring her skills and talents as a developer, and It is therefore with Miss Lathrup and her family that the story should continue.

THE LATHRUPS

By the 1890s, the Lathrup family had established an extensive homestead in sections 14 and 27 of Greenfield Township, Wayne County, Michigan. This section of Wayne County is unique in the state in that it was laid out in a manner that brought it into conflict with the township grid which extended throughout the state. This was due to the fact that much of the city of Detroit had begun to develop along the diagonal spine of the Saginaw Trail, later Woodward Avenue, which meant that the city was out of alignment with the orthogonal, north-south orientation of the governmental surveys.

By the 1890s, the platting of the city had expanded northward in this skewed manner, and then embraced an enormous tract of land called the 10,000 Acre Tract, which nearly doubled developed land in the city, and expanded the city beyond its earlier boundary at Grand Boulevard. This tract extended north to modem day Oakman Boulevard and the south side of what would become the Ford Highland Park plant, which is further indication of the significance of that factory. After its construction, the platting of the area expanded quickly, but was finally brought into compliance with the dominant planning grid of the region.

The Lathrup properties were in the 10,000-Acre Tract, and consisted of several farm plots. These include the thirty acre homestead of Luther Lathrup and his wife Miami, and additional land in the names of J.W. Lathrup (twenty-five acres) and M. Lathrup 17 adjacent to Luther's holdings, according to an 1894 atlas of Wayne County. These land holdings were all focused along what is now Cortland Avenue in Highland Park, but was then called Lathrup Road, south of Davison Avenue and between Twelfth Street (Rosa Parks Boulevard) and Linwood Avenue. By 1904, these holdings had expanded to at least 125 acres in the vicinity.

City directories as early as 1901 make use of the Lathrup Road designation, and that year indicate that John W. Lathrup, a farmer, was in residence in a house on the north side of Lathrup Road, while Ansel Lathrup, a gardener, made his home on the south side of 18 Lathrup Road. It appears to be Ansel and his wife Anna (Annie) who would become the parents of Louise Lathrup, born at the farm on May 27, 1893. Louise had five siblings: Margaret, Elizabeth, Gladys, Douglas and Earl.

It is difficult to ascertain exactly how the family became involved in the real estate business in Detroit, and just who was responsible. By 1915, Ansel Lathrup is listed as a real estate agent in city directories, and family addresses have shifted from Lathrup Road to separate addresses at number 219 Highland Avenue (Ansel) and number 219 Cortland Avenue (Byron, Louise and Margaret.) This suggests that the old homesteads have now been integrated into a new plat of land in what is now Highland Park, and that the family may have split apart in some way. This likelihood is further suggested by listings from 1922, which indicate that Ansel both worked and resided at the Highland Avenue address, while Annie, Elizabeth, and Margaret were in residence at number 195 Colorado in Highland Park.

Confusion arises, though, from notations at the time of the death of Louise Lathrup, which indicate that

Her grandmother, Mrs. Miami Lathrup, and mother, Mrs. Annie Lathrup, owned several fanns before the turn of the 19 century in the area now bounded by Dexter, Glendale, Twelfth and Collingwood.

Perhaps in preparation for her role in the family business, Louise completed coursework at a local business college, according to accounts at the time of her death, although exactly where and what specific course of study undertaken is not clear. She then worked for a period of approximately one year as a clerk at the Ford Motor Company, a fact that is correlated by her entry in the 1915 Detroit City Directory. It appears that Louise had completely taken over management of the family properties by 1918, which is 20 likely the real beginning of her career in real estate. By 1920, it is clear that Louise had established herself independently, and is listed in directories as a real estate agent, with offices at 2206-10 Dime Bank Building in downtown Detroit, and with a separate 21 residence at number 181 Connecticut Avenue in Highland Park.

Regardless of the specifics of this evolution of land holdings, it appears obvious that the Lathrup family found their farmland advantageously positioned at the time that Henry Ford announced the location of his Highland Park plant, previously discussed in this report . The primary focus of the Lathrup family's developments was a set of three subdivisions, all of which were platted and opened for sale by 1915.22 The first was known as J.W. Lathrup's Lawrence and Collingwood Subdivision, and is located along Lawrence and Collingwood streets, between Dexter Boulevard and Linwood Avenue, north of Boston Boulevard in section 28 in Detroit. The land for this subdivision appears to have been the most recently acquired, since records as late as 1904 indicate no family ownership in this area.

This subdivision was marketed as high-quality residential construction, as was the majority of construction in northwest Detroit, where the wages paid by the automotive companies allowed Detroiters an inordinately high percentage of home ownership.

The Lawrence and Collingwood Subdivision was also restricted to houses faced in brick, with consistent setbacks and approved designs; devices which would later be used to control the architectural character of Lathrup Village. As it stands today, the Lawrence and Collingwood Subdivision is in surprisingly good condition, the quality of the construction apparent even as the general demeanor of the neighborhood has declined. This lends credibility to Miss Lathrup's statement that "past achievements are a prophecy of the future. "23

Two additional developments were created by the Lathrup family into the 1920s. Lathrup's Home Subdivision was created on the J.W. Lathrup property in section 14. This subdivision was comprised of five streets running east from Linwood Avenue: Cortland, Highland, Sturtevant, Fullerton and Leslie. This subdivision incorporated two-flat structures, a rarity among Lathrup developments; although characteristically constructed with high quality materials and architectural details.

The third subdivision is known as Lathrup's Dexter Boulevard Subdivision, which consists of three streets--Fullerton, Leslie and Glendale--running east from Dexter Boulevard in section 13. This land corresponds to a different section of the property of J.W. Lathrup as indicated in records dating back to 1904. It seems likely that this was the most moderately priced of the Lathrup developments in Detroit, and has the greatest presence of bungalows rendered in the popular Craftsman style of the 1910s and 1920s.

The success of the Lathrup family in developing these properties is contemporaneous with a number of developers doing the same thing. The result was that quickly the opportunities for large scale development in the city were somewhat limited. This fact combined witl1 the increasing interest in Oakland County made this the next frontier for people like Louise Lathrup. As she was working to develop the city, she had already set her sights on what she envisioned as the suburbs.

LOUISE LATHRUP'S CALIFORNIA BUNGALOW SUBDMSION AND LATHRUP TOWNSITE

The beginnings of the development that became Lathrup Village are rendered somewhat unclear by contradictory information previously published. Of particular interest in this context is a statement published in the Oakland County Book of History (1970), which reads as follows:

Probably one of the most interesting land purchases of Lathrup property was that made in 1920 by a group of men calling themselves "Investors' Corporation." The members of the Corporation included Fritz Goebel, Earl Holley, Charles Stewart 4 Mott and Walter P. Chrysler?

Hagman continues:

In the early twenties, Louise Lathrup and her mother, Annie Lathrup, began extensive purchases in the area designated to become Lathrup Townsite... By the mid-1920's [sic] Louise Lathrup had acquired a total of 1,000 acres which constitutes the present City of Lathrup Village. 25

All of this is certainly in accordance with the commonly held understanding of how Lathrup Village began. This information is supported in a much earlier chronicle of the land acquisition:

Louise Lathrup, woman realty operator, 3032 Glendale Avenue, became the owner Saturday of 1,000 acres of land in the northwest section at a cost of about $700,000, which is regarded by realtors as the largest single acreage deal of the year, if 26 not within the history of Detroit real estate development.

This article goes on to indicate that J. Lee Baker of Detroit acted as broker for the transaction, and that it was the intent of the new owner to create "a settlement plan of extensive proportions, including building operations of more than $1,000,000. "27

Contradictory information exists, however, in the form of a plat map published in 1916 by the W.S. McAlpine Company of Birmingham. This map clearly indicates that by 1916, Louise Lathrup had already gathered holdings equaling well over 800 acres of land, almost the entirety of Lathrup Village. Of this tract, only forty-eight acres would be sold to another developer; later to become the Northampton Subdivision at the southeast comer of Eleven Mile and Evergreen roads. It is only the northwest comer of the present city that is missing from these holdings dated 1916, and these are seen in the map as a single tract of land of 209 acres, with no owner noted. In addition, Miss Lathrup had already acquired a tract of 160 acres at the northwest comer of Southfield Road 28 and Nine Mile Road in section 26 of Southfield Township.

Since the development of Lathrup Village was already underway by 1923, the community having been completely platted before 1925, it seems credible that Miss Lathrup would have assembled the lands by the late 1910s; and this suggests that the presence of Mott and Chrysler as land holders in the village in 1920 is apocryphal. Furthermore, the remarkable skill later demonstrated by Miss Lathrup in marketing her property suggests that the announcements of the property acquisition were timed not in fact to its assemblage or final purchase, but rather to the beginning of actual development, an idea supported by the following newspaper account from March, 1924, barely three months after announcement of the land acquisition:

The first 80-acre unit of the California bungalow subdivision was sold out within the last few weeks even before Miss Lathrup had time to have the plot recorded, and another 80-acre unit is now ready to be marketed. 29

Whichever is the exact moment of conception, it is apparent that from that point in 1924, Louise Lathrup's California Bungalow Subdivision, as it was originally known, or Lathrup Townsite as it came to be known, was conceived quite differently from the developments she had overseen in Detroit. It is also evident that the community was platted in its entirety before any land there was sold, and that the original plan has been followed almost in its entirety. From the outset, it was wisely understood that this still remote development would rely on the automobile, and that therefore this fact should be integrated into the design of the community and its houses. Although it was marketed in a somewhat different context with respect to the automobile:

Automobile development has so revolutionized suburban development that this and other properties once regarded as far 30 out, are regarded in the market today as close in.

The automobile, however, was not the only focus of the planning of Lathrup Townsite. The community was "entirely planned and 31 laid out by T. Glenn Phillips head of the Detroit City Plan Commission, and was patterned after Hollywood in California." Hollywood in the 1920s was in its first flush of worldwide fame, and the images of glamour which quickly were associated with southern California were embraced by advertising and development agencies throughout the country. The romance of the California lifestyle and image were summoned to mind in one of the aforementioned articles commenting on the development at Lathrup Townsite:

If you have ever been to California, try to visualize the better class of suburban communities in that state as you saw it. There were vine-clad bungalows nestling among the trees and shrubbery, and set in wide emerald green lawn. There were wide-paved streets, where the children could tumble and play without fear of the traffic that crowds the downtown thoroughfares. It was a veritable fairy land of beauty and peace and cornfort. 32

The streets, therefore, were generously scaled, with Goldengate Drive, Sunset Boulevard, Rainbow Drive, Red River Boulevard and Meadowbrook Way all conceived as wider than one hundred feet. In addition, the development was laid out to contrast orderly, orthogonally platted streets with gently curving roads, in keeping not only With Hollywood but with fashionable neighborhoods like Palmer Woods in Detroit, which Judson Bradway had developed based on the Country Club District of Kansas City. There would be no curbs, and initially, no paved roads, so that the country atmosphere would be preserved, and importantly contrasted with the density and hard surfaces and edges of city developments.

There would also be an abundance of open landscape, conceived as part of the development. This would include small pocket parks at road intersections, and a large arboretum that was to stand at the center of the community, near the civic center. Although the practicalities of economy prevented the arboretum from becoming a reality, Miss Lathrup stuck to her promise of lining each street with trees and providing trees for each lot sold in the subdivision--shade trees in front, fruit trees in back. 33 Hence, the present-day character ofLathrup Village is considerably different than that of later developments in Southfield, where few trees can be found.

Architecturally, the concession to the automobile would be the inclusion of a garage, either attached or detached, for each house constructed. This was a requirement, not an option; and is considerably different than the Lathrup developments dating from the mid 1910s, where many houses were developed without so much as a driveway, and where automobiles exist in a fairly uneasy relationship with the houses. Ironically, this requirement in Lathrup Townsite results in houses that have a quirky, if not ill- conceived attachment of garage to house, with standard floor plans obviously having been modified to accommodate this requirement.

In addition to accepting the automobile, it was deemed that the character of the development would be in general less congested than those in the city, both visually and physically. This resulted in lots which were fifty feet wide at a minimum, and setback restrictions placing houses consistently forty feet back from the road. In addition, houses were required to be constructed so that their first floor line would be no more than eighteen inches above the median grade for the site. This was part of Miss Lathrup's attempt to avoid what she called the "Tall House."

All those tall structures are now boarding houses. Only flats are built to look like them today. Who wants a private home to look like a flat or hospital? The modern home of preferred type has the low-sweeping style or bungalow roof, of 34 charming domesticity. More and more these new homesteads are being located out in some "Port Sunlight."

From the start, Lathrup Townsite was conceived as a place that was based on the input of professional planners and architects. Unlike many contemporaneous residential developments, which were developed in a sporadic manner, Lathrup brought professionals into the process to guarantee a sustained quality level as the development evolved. As time passed, this would change, and customers would often bring to the site their own house design, but in the initial phases of development of Lathrup Townsite, Lathrup herself dictated what would be built, and how it would be built.

Louise Lathrup consulted a team of architects to design the initial set of home plans that would be presented to prospective residents of Lathrup Townsite. J.H.G. Steffens, John B. Jewell, J. Ivan Dise and F. Orla Varney were the architects commissioned to create house designs. Miss Lathrup proudly proclaimed an expenditure of 40,000 dollars as "the cost of the architectural service that has 35 been rendered, its administration and promotion, the service of artists, engravers, printers and binders."

This work was presented in a handsomely produced informational and marketing publication entitled Gateways to Happiness: A Book of House Plans and a Home-planning Service, which was published in 1924. This publication should be considered the start of the real development of Lathrup Townsite. It contains a total of 125 building plans and exterior renderings, along with inspirational essays, which discuss the various aspects of home building and buying. The house plans themselves, as presented, represent the mainstream of eclectic house design of the era, and are given picturesque names, very similar in approach to the manufactured housing companies of the day. It appears, however, that only a handful, if any, of the houses built in Lathrup Townsite were based on this original collection of designs.

BUll...DING RESTRICTIONS

As evidenced through a number of publications issued by Louise Lathrup, one of the strengths of Lathrup Townsite would be the extraordinary degree of restrictions placed on the buildings constructed in the community. Restrictions of a sort had been in place in earlier Lathrup developments, but these were viewed by Miss Lathrup as "incomplete" and "liberal. "36 So the architectural plans for the Lathrup Townsite buildings included a broader range of restrictions, incorporated into the planning restrictions that had already been integrated into the platting of the community, some of which have already been noted.

Lathrup began the restrictions with the notation that only single family residences be built in the community. No apartment buildings or flats would be allowed. Each, as noted earlier, would be required to be set back forty feet from the street property line, and the first floor level could be elevated above grade by not more than eighteen inches. To avoid the "tall house" syndrome, each residence constructed would be either a bungalow or "semi-bungalow" form, suggesting that two story houses would not be permitted. This is one of the few restrictions that seems to have been loosened over time, as a number of full two-story houses were constructed, in a variety of English and American traditional styles. It is interesting to realize, however, that the development of the post-war ranch house is in many ways the apotheosis of this goal stated by the developer in the 1920s-the "low" house which had never been clearly given an architectural identity before.

Architectural style aside, it was deemed that every house in Lathrup Townsite would be of "face brick, stone, or portland cement stucco on metal lath or masonry .. . in no case are frame residences to be permitted. "37 The reasons for this are numerous, but focus primarily on permanence and quality of maintenance. Lathrup's approach to this was one of common sense, even if historically pretentious:

In every age, frame construction has given way to plaster and masonry as soon as men sought to express their artistic

natures and desires for lasting abodes. The old Roman architect, Vitruvius, declared three fundamentals of good building: "Firmness, Utility and Chann." A good motto today.

Besides,

38 It is well known that men build in better taste when they use the permanent materials.

If this were completely accurate, the world would be a lovelier place, but the sentiment certainly says something about the psychological construct of pride; and pride of place seems a goal of this development.

Collectively, it is the intent of these restrictions that the resultant building have a value of not less than 7,500 dollars in 1924. This number is considered to be separate from the cost of the land, which at the time was less expensive than comparable property in the city of Detroit. It would have been ill-advised to suggest that the community at Lathrup Townsite was less desirable than neighborhoods in Detroit, simply because the lots were less costly; so a clear differentiation had to be drawn between the respective costs of land and building.

These restrictions were used also to suggest that Lathrup Townsite was far from a rural outpost. Comparisons between developments in Binningham and at Palmer Woods in Detroit were made frequently, for many urbanites formed their image of suburban communities based on the small-scale houses in places like Urbanrest (Ferndale) and Royal Oak. The restrictions ensured that Latlrmp Townsite would possess a far more sophisticated visual imagery than the working class neighborhoods associated with the times.

MARKETING

Much of tl1e information above regarding the character of development in Lathrup Village comes from marketing materials prepared by Louise Lathrup and her associates. Gateways to Happiness may have been the first and most elaborate of the marketing publications created for Lathrup Townsite, but it was hardly the last. The range of materials published over the years is impressive, and the ability to stress the positive aspect of life in Lathrup Townsite and the negatives of life elsewhere is both amusing and startling.

In addition to the architects and planners noted earlier, Louise Lathrup affiliated herself with other real estate experts to market Lathrup Townsite. In Gateways to Happiness, Mr. J. Lee Baker, who as noted earlier, was credited with brokering the land purchase to create Lathrup Townsite, is listed as a selling agent, along with Fred and Harry Martin. Harry Martin appears to have maintained the longest relationship with Lathrup Village, and it was noted in his obituary in 1963 that he had been engaged in real estate at Lathrup since 1925. It is perhaps coincidental that Mr. Martin died on the same day as Louise Lathrup, January 22, 1963. 39

Harry Martin made extensive contributions to another Lathrup Townsite publication from 1926: Lathrup Townsite -A New City in the Making, which continued very much in the same vein as Gateways to Happiness. Importantly, however, this publication is copyrighted by the Charles D. Kelley Company of Detroit. Kelley would become the good right hand of Louise Lathrup, and in 1929 would become her husband.

Charles D. Kelley

Charles Kelley was born in Kenton, Ohio in 1881, and began his career as a newspaperman in that city. It is this career which would bring him into contact with Louise Latlrmp and with the development which would shape their lives together.

It was as a newspaperman that Charles Kelley came to Detroit in the first decade of the twentieth century. Details are sketchy of his

early life, but it is known that by the time of World War I he had married and had two children. He served in the United States Army, 32nd Division, and was an officer of the I 19th Field Artillery. He served with distinction at the second battle of the Marne in France in 1918, and upon his return was paid tribute in the Detroit News article "How Detroit's Fighting Men Humbled Foe's Best":

Capt. Kelley, who wears the gold chevron showing six months service abroad, will be made a major on his arrival in Washington. He was selected from the 32nd Division to be sent back to America because of work done on the field, and has been assigned to Camp Meade, where he will be either the adjutant of a brigade or given command of a combat battalion. 40 He expects to be back in the fighting line within a few months.

In this article Kelley movingly discusses his thoughts during the battle:

It was a strange experience out there in the field for the first time. Shells were falling all around. I do not care to inject any personality into this, so must pass over my own emotions. But in those days I saw things that I did not think could exist in 41 human beings. I did not know that men could be so brave.

Upon his return to Detroit, Kelley resumed his work in the newspaper business, rising to the position of "first real estate editor of 42 The Detroit News, as well as its first radio editor." The real estate section regularly published plans for houses, and according to Mr. Kelley's obituary, it is this service which brought Louise Lathrup into his acquaintance, when she came to the paper to purchase 43 house plans. An exact date of this meeting is unknown, but certainly it would have been in advance of 1924, when Kelley's name appears in publications relating to Lathrup Townsite.

Lathrup and Kelley were married in New York City on October 23, 1929. The disposition of his first marriage is not clear from published records.

Although tl1e development of Lathrup Village was certainly the primary activity of his professional life after 1926, it was not his only activity. During the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, Mr. Kelley acted as executive officer to George Burke, who served as the first Michigan director of the Federal Housing Administration. He was also active in the military reserve.

Certainly, however, he played a primary administrative role in Lathrup's development. His background in real estate and journalism may have been, at least partially, the impetus for much of the marketing material generated from Lathrup Townsite; and his skill in journalism may explain the relatively high quality of these materials.

These brochures were widely distributed and carefully prepared. Testimonials were solicited from recipients of Gateways to Happiness and used as material for A New City in the Making, including statements from Mrs. John W. Smith, wife of the Mayor of Detroit; and from Adam Strohm, Librarian of the Detroit Public Library, who indicated he would happily add Gateways to the 44 collection of the library, a relative rarity for advertisements.

The early marketing materials are notable for their attention to quality of appearance, and also for their adaptation of previously used material into slightly different form. Illustrative material is repeated, supported by text only slightly modified from earlier versions. Some information is restructured to seem more vital, for instance, a regional map included in Gateways refers to Southfield 45 Superhighway as the "Backbone of Transportation." A similar map in A New City references Southfield Road as part of "The Alpha of Transportation" along with Woodward Avenue and Eleven Mile Road, surely overstating the regional importance of the 46 latter.

Importantly, however, the publications also provide updated information on changes in the development and progress in general. A New City, for instance, includes publication of a rendering of the then under construction Town Hall on Southfield Road; along with announcement of construction of Louise Lathrup's own house, which would come to be known as the House in the Woods. This sort

of information gave a positive impression of the permanence of Lathrup Townsite and of the ongoing commitment on the part of the developer.

As the 1920s came to a close, marketing materials such as The Ensemble Home (1929) came to represent Lathrup Townsite and its progress. This document makes use of photographs of houses constructed in the townsite to show that the community is not a fantasy. Some of the material regarding the restricted nature of the community is continued from earlier publications, but now the emphasis is on the community of people and activities. Residents are identified by their place of business so that it is clearly understood that professionals and business leaders are at home here. "A New Social Center" is touted, along with a completely fabricated photograph of a community dance.

The 1929 publication shows a completed Town Hall, the completed Lathrup homestead, and displays photographs of the recently completed Annie Lathrup School, which further enhances tlte community aspect of the townsite. Amusingly enough, considering today's concerns about the harmful effects of the sun, one article in The Ensemble Home praises the qualities of "vita-glass," which

lets in an unseen flood of ultra-violet rays with the sunlight; whereas ordinary window glass blocks or hampers the entry of that part of the sun's rays--ultra-violet, so vital to life .. . Sunshine through ordinary glass is like skimmed milk. Ultra- 47 violet rays prevent rickets in children and fight colds!

Another attraction armounced in the 1929 publication is a community taxi service, which will provide service from the houses of 48 residents to connections with public transportation on either Grand River or Woodward Avenue, "paid for by the developer." This service, which was intended to largely appeal to women, is an example of the degree to which Lathrup appealed to women in her marketing. The very concept of "The Ensemble Home" included

a beautiful home of brick or stone, an attached garage, and a woman's car in the garage. 49

Astonishingly, Lathrup went on to make the following statement:

The first 25 couples building or purchasing Ensemble Homes in Lathrup Townsite in 1929 will each be allowed to select a new, fully-equipped coupe to be installed in such home, and the market price thereof will be added to the cost of the house-- but the home buyer will be required to make only a small down-payment on the whole cost of house, lot and car together . . .

and continued,

Memo to Husbands: This coupe installed in the Ensemble Home is for the wife and mother. Oh, she will let you use it, of course, when the "main wagon" is laid up--but you'll have to get permission--from Friend Wife.50

This suggested that the freedom of the modem woman was integrated fully into the concept of Lathrup Townsite. For the more traditional, however, motherhood and childhood were also highlighted in the publications:

Let children get right down next to Mother Earth on the very soil to make their own mud pies in summer, snow-men and forts in winter--to create with their own hands in their own way. 51

Sometimes tl1e emphasis on family suggested a certain irresponsibility on the part of those parents who remained in the city:

To your children, these wide, deep lots are a priceless boon; and anyway, everybody is healthier up here on this tableland 750 feet above sea level, than in the sulphuric-acid-laden smoke and fumes of Detroit's congested lowlands.52

These suggest the range of approaches taken to selling Lathrup Townsite, and speak volumes of the concerns that would lead buyers out of the city. Lathrup, or Lathrup and Kelley together, were masterful in the ways in which they worked to answer fears people did not even know they possessed.

The Great Depression of the 1930s brought many challenges to the task of marketing Lathrup Townsite. Funds became scarce enough that the Kelleys and their daughter, Louise, were forced to move out of the House in the Woods and make a home in the Town Hall. During this period, the diaries of Louise Lathrup make interesting reading, for they show a shrewd mind at work, whose main interest is the perpetuation of the community she began. The diaries consist largely of notes written to herself, and they indicate the concerns of her day. An entry for January 1, 1935, for example, suggests that she "Have meeting at Town Hall for every real estate man and builder in Detroit." Four days later, to try to raise money, she has devised "big things to work on," which include:

Sell hse Woods [House in the woods, ed.] Sell 200 lots at $750.00 each (after book is out)- $150,000 cash Get someone to plant and landscape yards for advertising in book. Also someone to donate playground equipment for advertising in book. Put up 16 family bungalow court along with the 6 model houses and advertise to 350,000 families. Put linoleum on floors to deaden sound, especially on second story+ panel living rooms 5' high with plywood. 80 acres in #7, divide into small estates and sell. $2000 to $2500 a piece, with no improvements except gravel roads. restrict against chickens etc. Can have pony

This entry suggests a juggling act of ideas and approaches to managing the issues of the community, and further suggests that no detail was too small to be noted. It also, unfortunately, indicates that some compromise may have occurred in quality of finish as funds became scarcer.

In May of 1935, her ideas include inclusion of her picture in the next book, along with creation of a cocktail bar in a model home, which could then be marketed as a "Bachelor House."

By the time of World War II, patriotism became a hallmark of the Lathrup Townsite marketing. A 1942 publication declared:

The President Is Right! Get a stake in the land you fight for He says all men help defense who own their own homes.

The worries of the soldier are eased:

Suppose you should enlist, or be drafted? The MORATORIUM LAW states that if you provide a home for your family, and then join the colors, your home cannot be foreclosed on while you are in service, nor for a period after you return. Let us send you a copy of this law.

The worries of the mother are, again, addressed:

Located on Southfield Road--220 feet above the level of downtown Detroit--SAFE BECAUSE THERE ARE NO INDUSTRIAL PLANTS OR CONGESTED DISTRICTS IN THIS AREA TO BOMB IN WAR TIME.

The emphatic nature of the wartime advertisements are considerably at odds with the gentle character of those publications which

emerged in the 1920s. In part this is likely due to the fact that as time passed, alternatives became available to Lathrup Townsite. Numerous other developments had emerged in south Oakland County that diverted attention from what was unique about Lathrup Townsite. This is not to say that this uniqueness diminished; not at alL The presence of Louise Lathrup at the helm was highly unusual in the area; but her competition had simply expanded and required a more aggressive response.

COMMUNITY RESTRICTIONS

Certainly the most controversial component of the restrictions in Lathrup Townsite were those pertaining to race and religion of residents. The term "restricted" as used in marketing materials has two meanings, and in fact that pertaining to social issues was often more clearly understood in the 1920s and 1930s.

Lathrup Townsite was not alone in its restrictions and in its racial homogeneity. Its founder, however, appears to have been somewhat more zealous in ensuring that the restrictions be enforced, and further appears to have been quite up front in expressing her desire to see them enforced.

Some references to the issue of restriction are subtle and cannot clearly be defined are referring to race or religion. The subtext, however, cannot be ignored when referenced against other information. The aforementioned 1942 marketing brochure, for instance, includes the following:

Finding the right neighborhood--the right schools--the right environment and association of people--for yourselves and your children--is becoming more difficult!

and continues to invite prospective buyers to come to Lathrup Townsite,

where families are carefully selected (ask to see our SMART CHART, showing a cross-section of Lathrup Townsite families--where restrictions are rigidly enforced.)

The Ensemble Home of 1929 suggests that "a Parent-Teachers Association can cooperate here more effectively than in a mixed, unsocial neighborhood" (emphasis added.)

Herein the subtlety is obvious, but should be referenced against notations made in the extensive notes and ledgers maintained in the Lathrup Townsite offices by Louise Lathrup. The "Prospect Book" in particular gives insight into the concerns of the developer with reference to prospective buyers. One entiy, undated:

James Moir- 14127 Winthrop Toolmaker Ford Motor - Scotch - good.

Another,

George Konstanzer - German

and yet another,

Charles B. Edwards- 100 E. Euclid Ave. Negroes too close

It should be stated, however, that not all comments were referring to ethnic heritage or racial issues. Issues of finance and suitability

and stability were also of concern in the ledgers and diaries of Louise Lathrup.

In the "Prospect Book" she happily records a visit by

Mr. and Mrs. Donald Schoenherr Well known family - Schoenherr Road.

She makes repeated references to "friend of ... " and also "LL thinks no good." She makes the following statement about a prospect:

J.B. Kelly - says he is a chemist "by himself' - rather dubious.

In addition to these comments recorded about visitors to the sales office, the records contain written exchanges such as the following:

-Look up Lie. #W-36862 -7/22/36

-7/22 no phone listed under tltis name in Plymouth. A.R Blacklock 11315 York Ave.- Plymouth, Mich. Chev. Town Sedan 1936.

The nature of tills mysterious exchange is clarified by another letter found in the files of the real estate office. Addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph A. Byrne at 431 Westchester Ave., Birmingham, the letter reads, innocuously, as follows:

Could you stop in at the Town Hall office at your convenience so that we can explain the advantage of a home in Lathrup Townsite to you.

The letter is signed "Louise Lathrup" and contains a hand-written post script,

Auto lie. 1/24/37 - Sunday.

All of this suggests that Lathrup and her staff recorded license numbers as they came through Lathrup Townsite and obtained the corresponding name and address of tl1e car owners. While tills can be thought of as an effective method of target marketing, it takes on a sinister character when combined with the knowledge that Lathrup actually went to the extent of hiring private investigators to chronicle the character and prospects of those individuals interested in buying property in the community

Subtle, surreptitious, sinister or not, the goals of the developer are clearly stated in the language integrated into the deed restrictions for all property owners in Lathrup Townsite, which in addition to specific restrictions regarding architectural or site development, included the following statement:

Every racial group hath members equal in merit to members of any other group and worthy of respect by all mankind, and a national ideal is an eventual, proper, ethnic amalgamation of many groups which may be present; but in a country yet new each and every distinctive group may naturally withhold from dwelling together with any other group therein, and the United States of America hath established laws and/or made treaties temporarily fixing a quota control as to various geographic sections, further regulations which heretofore have been promulgated under authority of the National Housing Act of the United States declare that a neighborhood which be homogeneous in character hath a more stable use and value for investment than one with differing groups of population, and that, to maintain such character, deed restrictions are necessary upon an entire neighborhood.

It is difficult to ascertain whether tills is strictly boilerplate verbiage or specific. Certainly, this kind of statement was made in large NPS Form 1().9QO.a OMB Approval No. 1024-0018

numbers of real estate deed, but certainly the language herein is characteristic of the finely rendered prose found in other Lathrup Townsite materials. Specific to Lathrup Townsite, the deed text continues:

No lot or lots of any subdivision herein named or any building thereon shall be used or occupied by other than persons who, each in the main, are classified or classifiable as members or descendants of members of one or more of the racial groups in and of the North Mediterranean Branch of the Caucasian race of Mankind as defined in editions of the New Standard Dictionary of the English Language.

What is remarkable in the context of this history is the degree to which Lathrup Village has risen above it to become a model of an integrated community.

CITY OF LATHRUP VILLAGE

For nearly thirty years, Lathrup Townsite existed as a community with no government of its own save the regulations of its developers. In fact, Southfield Township as a whole had no incorporated communities within its boundaries until the 1950s. All local government issues were handled at the township level, and the 1950 population of 18,499 persons found this satisfactory. This all changed starting in 1952, however.

In 1952, the J.L. Hudson Company of Detroit announced that it had acquired land in the southeast comer of Southfield Township, and would begin construction on a new regional shopping center to be called Northland. As eyes had turned toward Highland Park in 1909, so did eyes now tum toward Southfield. The Hudson's announcement suddenly made area leaders cognizant of the development potential for the area, and a number of proposals for incorporation of portions of the township began to emerge.

Southfield Park, a residential development near Eight Mile Road and Southfield, nearly adjacent to the planned shopping center, proposed incorporation as a city of an area spanning the width of the township but only a mile wide in the opposite direction. At the same time, it was proposed that all of Southfield Township be incorporated as a city some thirty-six square miles in area. Both of these proposals had at their core the desire to capture tax base created by the development of Northland and whatever other businesses would follow its construction.

Farther north in the township, however, there were other concerns about development unrelated to capturing tax base. Lathrup Townsite, with its tradition of regulation and control, was decidedly uninterested in corning under the control of a new city, and as succinctly summarized in a newspaper article from 1953; "Southfield area seeks to become city to keep from becoming too much a city.,53

There were realistic fears on the part of residents of Lathrup Townsite that the community would be so readily absorbed into the surrounding landscape, still largely undeveloped, that its identity as a community would essentially vanish. This fear seems to have been shared by residents ofFranklin, who also began to take action to avoid inclusion in the new city of Southfield.

Fear of absorption or greed for tax dollars seem to have driven other proposals during this period.

. . . up for consideration is the incorporation of Franklin as a village. Included in the area will be the land between Telegraph and Inkster from Fourteen Mile to Twelve-and-One-Half-Mile. Also chipping away at the edges of the township are Berkley and Birmingham. Berkley is considering .. . annexation of the land between Eleven Mile to Twelve-and-One- Half-Mile from Greenfield to the existing boundaries of Lathrup, while Birmingham wants the Beverly Hills area in the 54 northern portion of the township.

The race was on for incorporation in 1953. The first two concrete proposals were those prepared by the residents of Lathrup NPS Form 10.900-a OMB Approval No. 1024-0018

Townsite and by Southfield Township, which wanted the entire township to become a city. Both proposals were delivered to Oakland County officials on May 12, 1953, with the Lathrup proposal arriving literally minutes before that of the Township. The results of this with reference to the Township proposal are clear:

Southfield Township was notified today that its petitions for the incorporation of the entire township as a city were nullified 5 by the favorable vote for incorporation of Lathrup.5

At this point, the City of Lathrup Village became the first incorporated community in the Township of Southfield. This opened the floodgates of incorporation, which forever changed the character of Southfield Township.

Southfield Township lost chunks of its area and population in 1953-54-55 when Lathrup incorporated as a city, and Franklin and Bingham Fanus, in the northwest comer, incorporated as villages. In April 1958, the township was reduced to its present size when a 26-1/2 square mile sector incorporated as the City of Southfield and Beverly Hills incorporated as a v1'II age.56

The final step in incorporation was the adoption of a city charter, which took place by election in December 1953. In a remarkable display of citizen concern, 1,236 of the 1,382 registered voters in Lathrup Village turned out for the election, which resulted in 57 approval of the charter, by a vote of 622 to 563 .

The City of Lathrup Village chose as its first mayor William Harrie, who resided at number 28450 Santa Barbara Drive, and would establish the city offices at the House in the Woods. Most fitting, perhaps, was the election of Miss Kathryn V. Feyereisen as a member of the city council:

An example of Lathrup's progress was pointed out by the newly elected Justice of the Peace Leonard V. Pylkes. "It took the City of Detroit years to choose a council lady, but we chose one for our first council," he said.58

The process of shifting control of the city from Lathrup and Kelley to the residents took another leap forward the same month as the charter was adopted, when the founders announced they would give the city the gift of its own water system. The water system had been installed, on a street-by-street basis as sections of the city had been developed, and had been operated by the City of Detroit, which provided the water.

The contract with Detroit specified that if Lathrup ever incorporated, title to the water system would be returned to the Kelleys for use in the new community.5 9

At the time, it was estimated that the Kelleys had invested two million dollars in the system, and although the costs had certainly been rolled into the costs of property in the development, the donation of the system represents a major vote of confidence, and a shift of power, in the city.

The Kelleys did, however, remain a force in the city, as evidenced by commentary regarding the election of 1955, at which point the adoption of a new zoning ordinance was being debated.

Lathrup voters declared independence from the city's founders Monday as they resoundingly defeated three council candidates supported by subdivider Louise Lathrup Kelley. . . all three supported the city's zoning ordinance, called "ridiculous" by Mrs. Kelley. According to Councilman Campbell, "this is a clear indication that people out here want to run their own affairs. The campaign was clear-cut and the people decided against the Kelleys."60

Although they remained active and vocal members of the Lathrup Village community, at no point did either Louise Lathrup or (S-86)

Charles Kelley ever hold elective office in the community they created. Significantly, she also had little influence over the design and construction of houses in the city after 1953, although she still significantly controlled land sales. It is due to the determination of the new City government to retain the character of the community that residential development continued largely in the same vein.

Louise Lathrup Kelley died at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit on January 22, 1963, at the age of 69. The following Friday, January 25, the day of her funeral, the City of Lathrup Village declared a day of mourning in her honor. On that day, she was entombed in the mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit, next to the tomb of her mother Annie.

Louise Lathrup Kelley, surprisingly, left no last will and testament. Her estate was probated in Oakland County, and court documents revealed that at the time of her death, she included in her holdings relatively little money. Her stocks, personal assets and cash holdings totaled just over forty thousand dollars. Fittingly, however, she was owed over fifty thousand dollars in land contracts on previous land sales in Lathrup Village, and importantly still owned over one hundred residential lots in the city, which quickly began to be sold off for approximately four thousand dollars each. These last sales of land are the beginning of the residential developments of the 1960s at the south and north ends of the city, much of which was coordinated through the office of Antonelli Builders. Interestingly, at the time of her death, Louise Lathrup Kelley retained a safe-deposit box in the name of "Louise Hannah," which when opened was found to contain a small amount of cash, and most characteristically, stock certificates for the Lathrup 61 Town Hall Corporation.

Charles Kelley died at t11e age of 85 on September 8, 1966. He was found dead in his apartment in the Town Hall in Lathrup Village. At the time of his death he was remembered for his contributions as a member of the military during World War I and beyond; he was also honored as a longtime journalist. Primarily, however, he was honored as the founder of Lathrup Village, although accounts of his life create a vague chronology of when his involvement in Lathrup Townsite began. Mr. Kelley's body was entombed next to that of his wife at Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit.

THE BUJLDINGS

The buildings of Lathrup Village are obviously the major tangible evidence of the work of Louise Lathrup. Certainly, as a body of buildings, the residences in particular, may be thought of as essentially characteristic of mainstream residential design of the period from 1920 until the 1960s. However, the quality of the construction, the significant restrictions placed on homeowners and architects, the juxtaposition of house and neighborhood planning, all of these take Lathrup Village well outside of the mainstream of residential development in the Detroit area during this time period.

There is a range of styles represented by these buildings. Again, these are in keeping with residential trends of the time_ The Colonial Revival in its various manifestations is dominant in Lathrup Village, as it dominates the eastern half of the country in this century. The Colonial Revival does not stand alone in representing the tastes of the times however, and in Lathrup Village is joined by incarnations of English tradition, including the English Tudor and the English Cottage Revival; by a small number of French- inspired residential designs; by an equally small number of early Modern houses; and by a small but important collection of houses which reflect the traditions of Spanish Colonial architecture.

This eclecticism is compounded architecturally by the earliest efforts seen in the area to make these historic styles adaptable to modern life, primarily evidenced in the sometimes-awkward attachment of garages to traditionally conceived building plans. As the years pass, this sort of fusion of past and future comes more easily, and the garages have a less bizarre presence, but certainly their presence is something which should be thought of as especially characteristic of Lathrup Village. The garages and their placement give the community a particular rhythm that is considerably different than neighboring developments.

The stylistic characteristics of the buildings in Lathrup Village will be discussed in the pages ahead. Any real exploration of these buildings, however, should begin with an examination of those people who were responsible for the first generation of Lathrup Village houses: The architects who were first active in the community, and who set the standards for those who would come later to Lathrup Village.

The Architects

As noted earlier, Louise Lathrup worked with several architects at the inception of her development at Lathrup Townsite. She identifies them in her first major publication, Gateways to Happiness, as J.H.G. Steffens, John B. Jewell, J. Ivan Dise, and F. Orla Varney. Searches through the archives of the Michigan Society of Architects, American Institute of Architects reveals no concrete information about Mr. Jewell or about the firm of Halpin and Jewell, which is credited with the design of the Town Hall in Lathrup Village; but the search does reveal information about all of these other gentlemen.

J.H. Gustav Steffens came to Detroit from Manistee in 1911. His professional affiliations included the firm of Donaldson and Meier, which designed, among otlter structures, the David Stott Building in Detroit; Albert Kahn, working primarily under Ernest Wilby; and George D. Mason and Company. His first independent practice was established in the Architect's Building in Detroit, altllough the timing is not clear, much of this information having been gleaned from an autobiographical sketch of Steffens, written, amusingly enough in 1951 after a minor automobile accident which made Steffens fearful about his own obituary. He was noted as the architect of the Hotel Dearborn and Fordson Hotel in Dearborn, and later as the proprietor of the former as his architectural career waned in the 1940s and 1950s (he died in 1971). Earlier, however, his career had many faces to it, as noted in a 1951 newspaper account:

Steffens was tlte designer of the D.N. Straphanger House, tile first house made available to the general public on the small down-payment plan. His office also designed many business blocks, apartments and hotels. The Hotel Dearborn was 62 designed and built in 1926 by Steffens.

More gennane to the discussion at hand, however, is another statement in the same article:

Gus Steffens is the originator of the single entrance duplex apartment and it was he who headed the Small House Architects Bureau, whose plans were featured each Sunday by the Detroit News. These early plans were later presented in book form 63 and sent to all cities in the United States and Canada requesting the book.

This certainly suggests how Louise Lathrup became familiar witll the work of Steffens, but it also suggests that Steffens may not have actually participated in the planning of Lathrup Townsite, and instead simply sold the rights to his plans to Lathrup. The latter statement above may also provide insight into why some of the published Lathrup Townsite plans bear a striking similarity to designs published elsewhere nationally.

Freeman Orla Varney (1886-1969) was the descendant of architects "prominent in Michigan for more than sixty years" according 64 to a 1947 article congratulating him on his six1y-first birthday. These include Almon C. Varney, who is the architect credited witll design of the circa 1878 Washington-Ford House in downtown Binningham, Michigan,65 along with authorship of an 1884 publication entitled Our Homes and Their Adornments, a "complete household cyclopedia designed to make happy homes for happy 66 people. " In the context of the work of Louise Lathrup, it is interesting to compare her marketing publications with the words of Almon Varney in 1884, wherein he warns against:

one serious mistake--many times tlte plan of the house and cost of the same are not definite enough, and the home that was intended, under no circumstances, to exceed in cost the sum of$1,500, is found very incomplete when that amount has been

67 expended, and it is found, when too late, that the cost will be fully $2,000.

The younger Varney entered into partnership with his father, fonning the finn of Varney and Varney, and would at one time during the mid-1930s serve as Director of the Michigan Historical Building Survey.

Joseph Ivan Dise (1887-1969) appears to have been the most accomplished of this group of architects, and certainly came well armed to the task of designing for Louise Lathrup. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (1909), his employment history includes work with Albert Kahn in Detroit and Cass Gilbert in New York before opening the finn of Dise & Ditchy in Detroit, in partnership with Clare Ditchy.

During his tenure at Gilbert's office, it appears that Dise worked on the Scott Fountain on Belle Isle in Detroit, and also on the Detroit Public Library. His obituary in the Detroit Free Press makes reference to his working on the Detroit Institute of Arts, but in 68 what capacity is not clear. While in Detroit, his commissions included the Methodist Children's Village and the Boulevard Temple, but it is apparent from his resume that he was an architect concerned with design of the private house. He participated in and placed highly in competitions for design of stucco, textile block and white pine houses between 1914 and 1920, and placed first in a competition sponsored by the New York Sun for a frame house, in 1916; and first again in a similar competition for a brick house, sponsored by Architectural Forum in 1919. He went on to win the Group Prize given by the National Housing Corporation in 1921. These awards could be the source of his introduction to Louise Lathmp

Dise stated in 1947:

In designing a small house, economy in the use of space as well as material must of necessity be the keynote. We have therefore planned this house in an effort to provide a maximum of useable space in a minimum of area, using materials that 69 are substantial and of good design, yet not too costly.

Dise was apparently held in high esteem by Louise Lathrup and by Charles Kelley, as he was hired by Lathrup to design her estate house at Lathmp Townsite, which was completed in 1927, and stands in disrepair today. This building shall be discussed in more detail later. Exactly which other houses in Lathmp Village were designed by Dise is not clear, although Lathrup's ledger notes from the late 1920s include the reference that a customer was "crazy about Dise cinder block," which narrows the field to a small number of concrete block houses in the city.

THE STYLES

The architecture of Lathmp Village reflects the consensus common among house builders from 1920 onward that eclecticism was the American tradition of the twentieth century. Since the end of the Civil War, American house designers and builders had been designing in an increasingly broad range of styles, an approach that was narrowed somewhat in the 1910s and 1920s with the advent of the American Arts and Crafts movement. This movement reinvigorated an in~erest in handcraft and simplicity of detail, which in turn interested designers in a range of historically derived styles different from the tradition of the Colonial Revival. This evolution of style is clearly on display in Lathmp Village.

The Colonial Revival

The landscape of Lathmp Village is conclusively dominated by houses in the Colonial Revival style. This is a broad tenn, which embraces highly accurate reproductions of historical models of the Georgian style along with houses in the Cape Cod fonn, and loosely derived ranch houses which borrow motifs or details from more traditionally conceived antecedents.

Whereas it was common in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to work toward a fairly accurate replication of Colonial

traditions in new housing, as one moves later into the century one finds this characteristic becoming less typical. The Colonial Revival residence into the middle twentieth century is a kind of loose interpretation of its models, as much a commentary on as a replication of history. Indeed, many of the examples in Lathrup Village represent this looseness of interpretation, in part because of the necessary integration of the garage; in part due to an apparent attempt by the architects to create a range of model designs with diverse character, but enough tradition to prevent alarming prospective home-buyers. ·

Certainly in Lathrup Village the single house type which is most often seen is a symmetrical, center entrance Colonial Revival house with side or end gable massing. This house type is typically rendered with a brick exterior with wood trim, often unfortunately updated with metal or vinyl siding; symmetrically placed fenestration consisting primarily of multiple-light double-hung windows and a main entrance door embellished with an elaborate wood architrave. The general massing of this house type is often enlivened with addition of covered porches at the front entry or at the side, the latter configuration often used to balance the garage wing, which usually will project from one side of the main house mass.

Examples of this most common house type include number 27661 Lathrup Boulevard (1:16), which features a handsome broken triangular pediment detail at the entry, and is enlivened by gabled through the cornice dormers which animate the front facade; number 27734 East California {3:11), a delicately scaled and detailed house with a brick exterior, keystones at the first floor windows, a flat architrave at the entry, and through the cornice dormers. The latter house also features the characteristic attached garage, subordinate to the main mass of the house and articulated with a segmental arch garage.  NPS Form 10.900-a OMB Approval No. 1024-0018

A fairly grand example of the type may be found at number 19135 Saratoga Boulevard (5:4), which features a two story garage wing, balanced somewhat on the opposite end by a wood framed screened porch. The proportions of this house are far from historically accurate, with a strong vertical orientation to the first floor windows, with their keystones and wood framed spandrels; but a rather squat proportion to the second floor windows, which are tucked beneath wide, gabled through the cornice dormers.

Indeed, many of the Colonial Revival houses of Lathrup Village feature a highly original kind of proportion and rhythm that remove them from the mainstream of historic authenticity. This is most often seen, perhaps, in those houses that reflect the influence of the Cape Cod style of the Colonial Revival. Although the image of the classic Cape Cod house is a one or one-and-a-half story house with symmetrical fenestration and gabled dormers, many variants appear in Lathrup Village. One such variant is found at number 18794 West Glenwood Boulevard (4:11), a Cape Cod house with a symmetrical center section balanced by a recessed entry porch at one end and a projecting one-car garage at the opposite end; all housed beneath a single side gable roof. A similar house is found at number 27780 E. California (1:11). Another lively comment on the Cape Cod may be found at number 18171 Cambridge · Boulevard (8:35), which features a highly original array of identical multiple-light windows with a strongly vertical orientation.

The house which is probably the oldest extant in the district is a Cape Cod house, number 27240 Lathrup Boulevard (2:32), circa 1925. This small house is rendered in stucco, which certainly would not be historically correct, but its integrity is increased by the fact that its attached garage is housed in a wing projecting from the rear of the house, which allows the main mass to read clearly and which lends the house a greater feeling of authenticity. A rather abstract interpretation of the Cape Cod is found in number 18449 San Jose (8:2), which features an asymmetrical eave line and a fairly opaque facade, a result of the integration of a side- entrance garage stall into the main mass of the house.

Traditionally conceived Cape Cod houses may be found in the district, however. These include number 18586 San Diego Boulevard (6:17), number 18840 Bungalow Drive (6:22), number 18737 Saratoga Boulevard (4:30), and number 18161 Sunnybrook Avenue (9:1). The extent to which these comply with historical models is questionable, but they clearly comply with the suburban architect's conception of the Cape Cod that has served as a model for much of this century.

A version of the Colonial Revival house which is also an actor in Lathrup Village is the loosest adaptation of the style to be found. Difficult to classify by name, the house may be thought of as a suburban countryseat. It borrows materials and details from the Colonial tradition, but its massing is more random and complex, it spreads out across its site, confident in the ground it claims, assured that there is enough space, which is after all part of the suburban ideal. Examples of this in the district include number 27653 Rackham Drive (9:6) with its shifting eave line and asymmetrical fenestration and number 27851 Rackham Drive (9:10) with its wide front, shallow roof pitches and multiple gables.

The English Tudor

The robust and elaborate English Tudor Revival is separated herein from the English Cottage Revival, which is represented by a number of houses with a characteristic of quaintness. In Lathrup Village, the English Tudor house is in general large and prominent, well detailed with a costly array of features and materials that differentiate it from its humbler cottage cousins.

The English Tudor is particularly important in Lathrup Village because it was originally intended that one portion of the community be exclusively devoted to the style. Groupings of English houses as distinct from groupings of "California" houses appear to have been a goal for the community in early marketing materials. The fact that such segregation did not occur should not take away from the fact that the English tradition appears to have been highly favored by Louise Lathrup, and the presence of these houses in Lathrup Village must be viewed as a critical component of the tradition of the community. Moreover, many of these homes are very fine indeed.

The English Tudor Revival is characteristic of house styles which grew out of the Arts and Crafts movement in America. In the

quest to return to an age of handcraft, many archltects were romantically drawn to the English Medieval archltecture that is the stuff of lore. Consequently, patterns of half-timber details and clinker bricks, whlch lend a hand-hewn quality to the building, are common. Heavy wood trim, complex massing, elaborate chlmneys, leaded glass casement windows--all of these may be found in examples of the Tudor style, and all may be tied to traditions embraced in the Arts and Crafts.

One of the handsomest and most urbane of the Tudor incarnations in Lathrup Village is number 27930 E. California (1:7). Relatively compact in massing, the house has a proud disposition, and is given great strength through its cut stone cladding. A handsomely detailed segmental arch defines tlte recessed entry, whlch is accessed through a low stone wall that defines a front terrace. Metal casement windows throughout recall more elaborate models; wood shlngles on the roof add another note of tradition.

Number 27460 E. California (3:21) recalls the archltecture of the Costwolds, embraced by Heruy Ford and memorialized repeatedly by Albert Kahn in hls residential designs. Another compact house with great presence, this house is enlivened by its rough stone exterior contrasted with clean stucco walls and smooth stone archltraves. The second floor of the front facade features a delicately detailed plaster medallion that recalls a heraldic tradition.

The finest example of the English Tudor in Lathrup Village is also the most tragic building still standing in the city. Thls is the House in the Woods, officially designated as number 19600 Forest (9:18) and designed by J. Ivan Dise for Louise Lathrup, circa 1927. This is the house tltat most clearly recalls the tradition of the English Tudor as the style of the landed gentry. Placed formally in the center of a round site of six-and-a-half acres, the house has been encroached on by recent development as the property has been subdivided. Built primarily of brick and stucco, with stone trim, the house generates great rhythm through the repetition of window units and open arches. Its complex, rambling mass suggests a lack of constraint that is rendered somewhat meaningless by its modern context. The house is in a serious state of disrepair, but should be saved, as its potential as the center of community life in Lathrup Village is great; aside from the fact that it is the building most closely tied in with the hlstory and legend of Louise Lathrup.

There are, of course, numerous more humble examples of the English Tudor in Lathrup Village, but even these are in general handsomely detailed. Typical is number 27630 Lathrup Boulevard (2:26), a hlgbly urbane house with a compact, vertically oriented configuration, but with very rich details in stone and half-timber, through the cornice dormers and a steeply pitched entry portal that sweeps to the ground.

Spanish Colonial Revival

It was clearly intended by Louise Lathrup that Lathrup Townsite would be reminiscent of the neighborhoods in southern California. Her marketing materials bear tllis out, as does the simple fact that she called her first subdivision on this site Louise Lathrup's California Subdivision. As she had suggested groupings of English archltecture, so she suggested collections of buildings in the "California" style; buildings which would line streets honoring the California tradition--San Diego, San Quentin, San Jose, San Rosa, Goldengate, Sunset Boulevard, Eldorado, California, Dolores, Santa Barbara and Wiltshlre Boulevard. Thls style, however, appears not to have been embraced by the buying public in the Detroit area, as few examples were built. There are a few examples in Lathrup Village, and they include some of the more interesting houses in the city

The Spanish Colonial Revival emerges in mainstream residential design in much the same way that the English Tudor does. As part of the Arts and Crafts movement, interest emerged in the simple, unadorned planes of stucco or adobe, whlch were considered at once traditional and handcrafted but also abstract and cleanly modern. The use of tile and wrought iron as accent materials fit snugly into the tradition of handcraft embraced by the movement as well. The fact that the archltecture had gained, by the 1920s, a romantic link to the glamour of Hollywood and southern California is a bonus that made the style tempting to certain builders and buyers as a marketing device.

Without a doubt the most elaborate and handsome example of the style in Lathrup Village is the house at number 18560 Bungalow Drive (6:27), an ebullient and dynamic house which has numerous surprises in material and form. The varied profile of the roof parapets on both house and garage recall a number of mission precedents, and override a rather squat and boxy proportion to the house. Although primarily brick, the house is enlivened by tile medallions, clay tile scuppers and clay tile roofs over window bays and chimney transitions. The entry is demarcated by perpendicular arched openings, which are repeated in front windows; which in tum are further enlivened by elaborated leaded panes.

Number 18530 San Diego Boulevard (6:20) is a far less exuberant dwelling, but unique nonetheless. This house features a low- slung configuration reminiscent of the mainstream of Arts and Crafts bungalows of the time. The shallow-pitched roof is clad in clay tile, accented with wood siding in the gable ends. The house is clad in stucco, with a brick soldier course defining the floor line. The fenestration is subdued, with casement windows topped with flat wood lintels; and the entry concealed on a deeply recessed front porch. A subdued house, tllis example points to the modem abstraction of the Spanish Colonial style that appealed to a generation of forward-looking architects.

Number 27605 W. California (9:29) is an interesting incarnation of the style, since it seems highly opaque, which is characteristic of Spanish traditions, but seems at odds with our general conception of the California house. This is actually a fairly formal house, with narrow, vertically oriented windows lending a certain elegance of proportion; but the formality is really due to the prominent entry portal. A large gabled projection emerges from the center of the house and is fused with a wide and massive chimney. An unadorned arch announces the entry in a highly straightforward manner. A small plaster medallion punctuates the front wall to the right of the entry.

The English Cottage Revival

As noted earlier, the English Cottage Revival style house is the cousin to the English Tudor Revival. Rooted in the same interest in the Arts and Crafts movement, the English Cottage bears a more specific relation to the English Arts and Crafts movement as inspired by William Morris in the mid-nineteenth century. Consequently, it is not as robust or assertive as the Tudor, modeled on medieval precedents. The English Cottage is in general smaller, quainter, more delicate, less exuberant in detail, and charming instead of impressive.

One is less likely to observe half-timber details on the English Cottage, instead the material composition of tills house will be more cohesive. Stucco is often used alone, not as an accent material. Windows are often smaller in scale and more decorative in form than in the Tudor, but humbler in detail, lacking the fanciful leaded patterns often seen in the Tudor models. As suggested by the name, the cottage, not the manor house, is the inspiration for tills design, and therefore is better suited to smaller houses, where the pretensions of the Tudor style would often overwhelm.

An excellent example of the style is found at number 18575 San Quentin Drive (8:14). This charming house features a stucco exterior and asymmetrical massing which recalls an American Cape Cod. Its most interesting feature is a projecting front gabled wing with a massive cllimney at the center of the gable, but asymmetrical in the facade due to the extension of a small arched garden gate housed in a wing wall. The wing is given great visual weight owing to the fact that the only opening in the facade is a small oculus window outlined in brick. The house exemplifies the appeal of the English Cottage quite well.

Number 17650 Cambridge Boulevard (1:1) is a highly animated house with multiple crossed gables and steep roof pitches. The roof is particularly interesting due to its wavering ridgeline--which is clearly visible in historic photographs of the house, and is not a sign of deterioration--which seems linked to the English tradition of the thatched roof. Although the original wood siding has been replaced herein with metal siding, much of the character of the house is still intact. NPS Fonn 10-900-a OMB Approval No. 1024-0018

Modern

Surprisingly, for a community which presented itself as the latest thing in convenience and style, and considering the modern attitudes of its founder, Lathrup Village is significantly lacking in examples of the various styles which could collectively be termed Modem.

The Detroit area in general was quite conservative in its housing tastes, and therefore one finds relatively few examples of modem housing in the region until after World War II, twenty years after the first examples of the style moved into the United States from Europe. Art Deco, International Style, Art Modeme, Streamlined Modem--these are a few of the names which were used to define this emergent trend toward flat roofs and industrial materials, which suggests the confusion which reigned regarding this movement, which was never embraced by the mainstream of house builders or buyers.

In Lathrup Village, there are only a handful of buildings that seem derived from the tradition of Modernism. None of them is pure in its inspiration, none is clearly exemplary of one of the titles given above, so the cause of Modernism should essentially be considered a lost one in Lathrup Village.

The circa 1938 house at number 18465 Saratoga Boulevard (4:28) is the most clearly Modern in the city, although significantly altered. Built in the heyday of the pre-war Modem movement, the house is very horizontal in character, features a flat roof and windows which wrap around nearly every comer in the house. The original windows, however, have been replaced with less substantial windows than were likely in place at the time of construction, and the entire house is faced with a stone surfacing material which may or may not be original, but seems out of character with the general demeanor of the house. Its neighbor, number 18525 Saratoga Boulevard (4:29), may reveal something of the original character of number 18465. Both feature a similar proportion of window, and each has its sills articulated with a course of brick beneath. The latter house, however, still features metal casement windows tl1at are likely original, and a brick exterior. However, this house has been modified with the addition of a mansard roof clad in shingles, which seems most out of character with what sits beneath it.

The Ranch

As Lathrup Townsite evolved, and indeed as the aesthetic of the American suburb evolved, there emerged the first house type which can be truly thought of as suburban. With no meaningful precedent in urban development, the ranch house was generated as a model which emphasizes a horizontal reach, symbolizing the amount of space available to the suburban homeowner, which was generally lacking in urban settings.

Certainly, the ranch house may find its roots in tl1e Arts and Crafts bungalows from earlier in the century, with their horizontal character fully on display. The bungalow, however, was conceived as a house on a budget, and was generally built on a fairly constricted lot; its sense of space was maximized by a sense of open architecture more than actual open space.

The real source of the ranch house is more likely the Usonian House, as developed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Also conceived on a budget, the Usonian House, which emerged in 1936 in a house built by Herbert and Katherine Jacobs in Madison, Wisconsin, featured a number of technical innovations that largely remained particular to the Usonian models. It also, however, contained a very fluid sense of interior space arranged all on one level, which is the inspiration for the ranch house.

The ranch house really begins the mainstream of its development during the period of significance of this nomination. In 1946, the first of the East Coast developments known as Levittown was begun by developer William Levitt in Hempstead, Long Island, New York. Although held up as a model of post-war suburban development, in many ways the development of the Levittowns was a simple capitalization on a post-war housing shortage. However, the Levittowns and their followers put into practice many techniques for construction that had been developed out of the industrial processes of the war. This includes standardization of

70 materials such as di)'Wall, and dimensional uniformity that emerged as part of the standardization.

The ranch house is unlimited in terms of its stylistic adaptations. The open space noted above may be clad in Colonial, English, Spanish or French garb, but it remains a singular advance in terms of its conception of interior space.

Countless examples of the ranch house emerge in the district before and during World War II, and illustrate clearly the advance of ideas of suburban design that had been simmering in Louise Lathrup's mind since she worried about the Tall House problem in 1924.

Many ranch houses in the district present a fusion of ranch planning with Colonial Revival decorative details. In the years which follow World War II, however, and especially into the 1950s and 1960s, a more modern ranch house will come to dominate new construction in Lathrup Village, one which is essentially free of historic reference and borrows more strongly from the traditon of Wright. The northern portion of tl1e city in particular reflects this, as does the nickname "ranchland" given by some residents of the city. In Lathrup Village, however, due to its significant development restrictions, the ranch house co-exists with the Colonial Revival house quite comfortably, and the ranches on tl1e whole reflect the same concerns for quality of construction and material. The majority of those that could be considered Modern feature ample quantities of cut stone, including engraved address markers. They feature large windows, often spanning corners, a detail inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's butt-glazed corners, and hip roofs, another reference to Wright.

Those sections of the community in which ranches dominate also reflect a general character of post-war affiuence that is lacking in some of the more constricted sections of pre-war development. The long, low configuration of the ranches combines with wider lot configuration to give these streets a very potent and regular geometry.

The Lathrup Village Bouse

Although Lathrup Village is extremely diverse overall with reference to architectural style, there nonetheless are a number of houses that appear to be specific to Lathrup Village. These are the houses that were designed "in-house" as it were, by designers who worked through the Lathrup offices. These become characteristic of tile city in part due to their repetition, but in part due to slight idiosyncrasies of style and proportion which tie them together. Although some of these may have been noted elsewhere in this report, they are gathered together here to suggest the importance that the builder/developer had in shaping the image of this community. Perhaps the most characteristic Lathrup Village house is summarized as House No. 1, as it is identified in a 1938 marketing brochure. Slight variations of this house are identified by different numbers, but the house remains essentially the same. House No. 1 is a Colonial Revival house, two stories in height, but with a low eave at the second floor, which results in repeating tlrrough-the-cornice dormers, placed symmetrically across the facade. This is in contrast with the fenestration of the first floor, which in all configurations is asymmetrical, with varying sizes and placement of windows; and all with a built in, one-car garage which faces the street and is included in the main mass of the house.

Examples of House No. 1 and its cousins include numbers 18769 Saratoga Boulevard (4:32), 18550 San Diego Boulevard (6:19), 27725 E. California (1:4), 27461 W. Goldengate Drive (7:7).

House No. 9, the Lathrup Village adaptation of a Cape Cod, is nearly as popular, as numerous examples are on display throughout the city. Again symmetrical at the second floor but asymmetrical at the first, and with the garage house in a separately articulated wing, the house generally features surprisingly small windows at the first floor, which lends an unusual proportion to the house owing to the high sills.

Examples of House No.9: 18600 San Diego Boulevard (6:16), 28010 E. Goldengate Drive {2:8), 18840 San Quentin Boulevard (6:6), an English variant. NPS Form 1~900-a OMB Approval No. 1024-0018

As noted earlier, one of the things which most clearly characterizes the Lathrup Village house is the integration of the garage. The traditional models for homes often have the garage simply tacked on to a classic design, but occasionally the designers have attempted to be more creative with placement of the garage, with unusual results. Number 27670 E. California (3:14) is an excellent example. From the street it appears to be an ordinarily conceived Cape Cod house, but the side elevation reveals that a one-car garage has been inserted directly into the center of the house. It is announced by a slight projection of the garage, punctuated by a small porch above. What sort of havoc the presence of this garage wreaks on the interior cannot be determined, but its placement is highly unusual.

Public Buildings

Although the Town Hall, circa 1927, was for years the symbol of Lathrup Village, it was demolished in the early 1990s to make way for a commercial development. Therefore, the only public--non-commercial--buildings which remain in Lathrup Village are the current City Hall and Post Office, both constructed in the 1970s and 1960s, respectively, the Community Congregational Church, circa 1950, and the Annie Lathrup School, all on Southfield Road. They are flanked by a number of commercial buildings, however, which are less distinguished architecturally, although many of them reflect the suburban imagery of the housing stock, whether through deliberate application of Colonial Revival motifs, or tl1e more common massing and detail of the post-war ranch house.

The circa 1928 Annie Lathrup School at number 27700 Southfield Road (10:31), named in honor of the mother of Louise Lathrup, is the most prominent building in the city, and bears further testament to the scope of vision held by the founders for the community. It is a handsome building rendered in an English Gothic style, with a large central side gable mass balanced by flanking chimneys. The main facade of the center mass features three large stone clad windows, two stories in height, which are flanked by two small projecting gables trimmed in brick and stone. The main mass is flanked by two wings, which originally housed the four original classrooms. These wings house the main entrances to the building, which are marked by stone portals with pointed arch motifs.

The south end of the building features an addition three bays in width, which attempts to be harmonious with the original building, but substitutes wood for stone. The rear of the building features a more recent and larger one-story addition that houses additional classrooms. This addition is rendered in a Modem style.

The original wings of the building feature brick spandrel panels with patterns based on the brick courses used in the Lathrup Townsite houses, including basketweave and herringbone patterns. The variety of brick patterns available in house designs was often touted by Louise Lathrup in marketing materials. In this way the design of this building is clearly tied into the life of the community, and serves further as a conveniently placed marketing device for the opportunities available to prospective homebuyers.

The Community Congregational Church at 27800 Southfield Road (14:26,27), is a handsomely rendered structure in a kind of suburban Georgian Revival. Brick and wood, with a delicate cupola atop the sanctuary mass, the building fits into a tradition of Congregational Church architecture, while presenting a loose interpretation of that history that is at home with the generally horizontal character of the district.

The U.S. Post Office at 28225 Southfield Road (32:4) is a small gabled structure with a pronounced Colonial Revival character, and should be considered typical of a generation of such buildings in Lathrup Village, including number 27445 Southfield Road (32:5). These buildings collectively reflect the traditional imagistic aspirations of Louise Lathrup, as does the modified Colonial Revival character of tl1e Lathrup Village Municipal Building at number 27400 Southfield Road (32:14), although the latter is considered a non-contributing building in the district.

The post-war architectural character of Lathrup Village's houses, which is dominated by the ranch house, is reflected in a number of commercial buildings as well. Arley's Firestone, number 28000 Southfield Road (32:11) is characteristic of the strongly stated

horizontals which dominated this collection of buildings. The Vigilante Security building at number 27215 Southfield Road (32:8) with its powerfully stated chimney form recalls not only the model of the suburban post-war ranch, but the bold geometiy of the Modernism of Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Its finishes, however, fit well within the tradition of the house established in Lathrup Village.

SUMMARY

The existence of Lathrup Village is a testament to the will and creativity of Louise Lathrup. Although beyond the district it has expanded in the years since her death in a manner which lacks the architectural integrity of the Lathrup developments, the community still bears a great deal of architectural distinction, and significantly represents the character which Miss Lathrup attempted to weave into it. Although the landmark Town Hall building has been lost to demolition, the House in the Woods and Annie Lathrup School remain standing as tangible reminders of the presence of Miss Lathrup and of her goals for the community.

As a woman acting as developer starting in the 1920s, Miss Lathrup was essentially alone. She would win few personality contests, indeed appears largely to have viewed the world in business terms. Her dogged persistence and insistence on quality, however, resulted in a unique community that was the summation of her career.

CRITERIA EXCEPTION G

Although many properties included in the Lathrup Village Historic District are less than fifty years of age, they possess exceptional significance. This is due to the way they complete the construction and planning goals integrated in the conception of an ideal suburban community formed in t11e 1920s and developing from that point forward. The street system and overall plan, originally platted in 1924, are as much contributing features as are the houses. The houses themselves, however, all contribute to the district's historic character because tl1ey all-including the 1950s and early 1960s ranches-follow Louise Lathrup's formula for being "low" and of masonry construction, giving the district streetscapes a pleasant uniformity that was apparently part of the goal.

1. Durant, p. 269.

2. Walter Romig, Michigan Place Names (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986), p.209

3. Seeley, p. 492.

4. Romig, p. 525.

5. Vicki Goldbaum, Southfield- Yesterday and Today (Southfield, Michigan, 1983), p.6.

6. W. Hawkins Feny, The Buildings ofDetroit: A History (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1980), p. 183.

7. Waddell, p. 92.

8. Ibid., p. 105.

9. K.D. Lohmann, Tentative Sketch for a Metropolitan System of Parks and Boulevards (Detroit: City Plan Improvement Commission, 1916).

10. Eighth Annual Report to the Board of Supervisors of the County of Oakland, State of Michigan (Pontiac, Michigan: Board of County Road Commissioners of the County of Oakland, 1919-20), p.18.

11 . Thirteenth Annual Report of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Oakland, State of Michigan (Pontiac, Michigan: Board of County Road Commissioners of the County of Oakland, 1925), p.39.

12. Nineteenth Annual Report to the Board of Supervisors of the County of Oakland, State of Michigan (Pontiac, Michigan: Board of County Road Commissioners of the County of Oakland, 1930).

13. W.S. McAlpine, Map of Oakland County, Michigan (Birmingham, Michigan: W.S. McAlpine, 1925).

14. Jack E. Schranun, William H Henning, Richard R Andrews, When Eastern Michigan Rode the Rails (Glendale, California: The Interurban Press, 1984), p. 172.

15. Fifteenth Annual Report to the Board of Supervisors of the County of Oakland, State of Michigan (Pontiac, Michigan: Board of County Road Commissioners of the County of Oakland, 1927), p. 118.

16. Seventeenth Annual Report to the Board of Supervisors of the County of Oakland, State of Michigan (Pontiac, Michigan: Board of County Road Commissioners of the County of Oakland, 1929), p. 116.

17. Mason L. Brown, C.E., Wavne County and Part of Oakland and Macomb (Detroit: Silas Farmer & Co., 1894), Map 4.

18. RL. Polk, Detroit City Directocy (Detroit: RL. Polk Co., 1901).

19. "Founder ofLatluup Village Dies," The Detroit News, 23 Januazy 1963, p.5A.

20. "Lathrup's Mrs. Kelley Dies at 69," The Detroit Free Press, 24 January 1963, p. B-1.

21. RL. Polk, Detroit City Directory (Detroit: RL. Polk Company, 1920).

22. Louise Lathrup, Gateways to Happiness, (Detroit: John Bornman & Son, 1924), p. 9.

23. Ibid.

24. Arthur A. Hagman, ed., Oakland County Book of History (Pontiac, Michigan: Oakland County Board of Commissioners, 1970), p.205.

25. Ibid.

26. "Woman Realtor Takes Over Large Acreage," Detroit Sunday Times, 30 December 1923.

27. Ibid.

28. W.S. McAlpine, Map of Oakland County, Michigan (Birmingham, Michigan: W.S. McAlpine Co., 1916).

29. "California Bungalow Subdivision Furnished Development Novelty," Detroit News, 2 March 1924.

30. "Woman Realtor ... "

31. Louise Lathrup, "Description of Louise Lathrup's California Bungalow Subdivision," advertisement text, undated.

32. "California Bungalow Subdivision Furnished Development Novelty."

33. Harry L. Martin, Lathrup Townsite- A City in the Making (Detroit: John Bornman & Son, 1926), p.4.

34. Louise Lathrup, Gateways, p. 11.

35. Lathrup, Gateways to Happiness, p. 4.

36. Gateways, p. 4.

37. Ibid., p. 19.

38. Ibid.

39. "Harry L. Martin," obituary, The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, Michigan), 23 January 1963, p.2.

40. L.L. Stevenson, "HowDetroit'sFightingMenHumbledFoe'sBest," (The Detroit News, 11 September 1918), p. 1.

41. Ibid., p. 4.

42. "Rites Set for Kelley, 85; Lathrup Village Founder," (The Detroit News, 9 September 1966).

43 . Ibid.

44. Hany L. Martin, Lathrup Townsite- A City in the Making (Detroit: The Charles D. Kelley Company, 1926), p. 12.

45 . Gateways, p. 10.

46. Martin, p. 8.

47. Louise Lathrup, The Ensemble Home (Detroit: Louise Lathrup, 1929), p. 26.

48. Ibid., p. 21.

49. Ibid., p. 8.

50. The Ensemble Home, p. 10.

51. Ibid., p. 2.

52. Ibid., p. 6.

53. Roy Gast, "Southfield Area Seeks to Become City to Keep from Becoming Too Much a City," The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, Michigan, 6 July 1953).

54. "Sharpen Knives for Southfield Calving," The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, Michigan, 19 May 1953).

55 . "Southfield Petitions Thrown Out," The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, Michigan, 21 May 1953).

56. "1 0 Years Makes Big Difference in Once Mighty Southfield Twp.," The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, Michigan, 13 May 1960).

57. "Lathrup Becomes City by 59-Vote Majority," The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, Michigan, 8 December 1953).

58. "Lathrup Village Now Going Concern," The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, Michigan, 15 December 1953).

59. "Lathrup to Get Water System," The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, Michigan, 29 December 1953).

60. "Lathrup Voters Declare Indpendence from Kelleys," The Daily Tribune (Royal Oak, Michigan, 5 April1955).

61. Oakland County Probate Court documents, case #81433, 61.

62. "Dearbornite Leaves for 36-Day Tour of Five European Cities," Dearborn Indepedent (Dearborn, Michigan, 18 May 1951)

63. Ibid.

64. "We Congratulate," Detroit Free Press, 12 July 1947, p. 3.

65. Patricia Beach Smith, "Troy Family's Townhouse Built as Monwnent to Era," Birmingham Eccentric (Birmingham, Michigan, 17 May 1973), p. 15.

66. Ernest A Bawngarth, "$900 Bought a lot ofHouse in 1884," The Detroit News, 28 November 1958.

67. Ibid.

68. "J.I. Dise, Art Institute Designer, Dies," Detroit Free Press, 24 October 1969, p. 8C.

69. "J. Ivan Dise Named in Kern's Series," The Detroit News, 12 January 1947.

70. Clifford Edward Clark, Jr., The American Family Home, 1800-1960 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1986), p. 218.

The Lathrup Village Historic District is a predominantly residential district numbering approximately 1,200 properties; which comprises most of the city of Lathrup Village. The district is a model suburban community planned and largely constructed by Louise Lathrup Kelley between the years of 1924 and 1963. Although intersected by two major straight arterial roads that cross at right angles-Southfield Road and the I-696 expressway-the district possesses a strong geometric street pattern integrated with curvilinear patterns that provide a rural character. This layering of patterns produces octagonal, circular and semi-circular focal points and a series of small triangular parks scattered throughout the district. It also creates unique and changing perspectives, as views of significant buildings like the Annie Lathrup School suddenly appear at surprising moments. Likewise, at the uniquely configured intersections of many streets, one is met with a new perspective as suddenly several sections of the district become visible. Most streets within the district end abruptly at the city limits, and the neighborhoods of surrounding Southfield vary considerably, giving the area a uniquely self-contained character. The uniform masonry-predominantly brick-construction of the district' s Colonial, Tudor, and ranch houses also sets the district apart from the areas around it.

The center of the community is a pair of sites opposing one another across Southfield Road which originally contained the Annie Lathrup School (still standing) and tile Town Hall (demolished). The Town Hall, a prominent Colonial Revival structure, was home to the Lathrup family real estate business and converted to municipal use when the development became a city. As hard times descended, it would become the residence of Louise Lathrup and her family as well. Its demolition in favor of construction of a commercial strip center in the early 1990s is the event that precipitated the creation of an historic district. The school and town hall sites are bisected by Southfield Road, the commercial center of the community, and are surrounded by an octagonal distribution of roads collectively referred to as California Drive. These roads are in turn intersected by roads which radiate outward in all directions: Goldengate Drive to the northeast and southwest; Sunset Boulevard to the southeast and northwest; and San Quentin Drive, running east-west and bisecting the center oftown. Beyond this town center, the majority of roads in the district have an east- west orientation: Sunnybrook Avenue; Cambridge Boulevard; Bungalow Drive; San Diego Boulevard; San Quentin Drive; San Jose Boulevard and Saratoga Boulevard. The east half of the district is traversed by the gently curving north-south road Lathrup Boulevard. The west half of the district is likewise traversed by Bloomfield Drive and Santa Barbara Drive.

West of Santa Barbara Drive, a different planning and development character emerges. This is centered on the House in the Woods, the residence of Louise Lathrup constructed in 1928 and designed by architect J. Ivan Dise. The House in the Woods stands in the center of a six-acre round site formed by Morningside Plaza. The six-acre site has been recently subdivided and new residential construction surrounds the House in the Woods. Radiating outward from this street are the streets Rainbow Circle and Rackham Drive. Intersecting these radiating streets are Rainbow Drive, Woodworth Way and Red River Drive. Rainbow Drive continues into the southwest quadrant of the district, where its diagonal rhythm is echoed by Middlesex Drive, Bloomfield Drive and Meadowbrook Way.

Collectively, all these streets feature details of a rural character which differentiate the district from other urban or suburban neighborhoods. For example, all streets are constructed without curbs; there is no city street lighting. Several streets-Woodworth Way, Sunset Boulevard, Eldorado Place, Rackham Drive and Catalpa Drive-feature sections still finished in gravel instead of the asphalt paving which dominates. Several streets-Sunset Boulevard, Lathrup Boulevard, and Goldengate Drive in particular- feature extremely deep setbacks which create a highly open prospect. In addition, the intersection of curvilinear roads with orthogonal roads creates the aforementioned series of small park spaces throughout the city, which give a suggestion of the goals of the developer to create an arboretum in the city.

Although the large-scale arboretum conceived was never realized, trees and vegetation still have an impact on the physical character of the district. In most sections of the district, shade trees line the streets adjacent to sidewalks. Although orderly in placement, the varied selection of evergreen and deciduous specimens results in an appearance of great variety of vegetation. Maples and oaks dominate, punctuated by locust and ash, and then contrasted with ornamental varieties such as crabapple and flowering pear. Although originally it was intended that each back yard should be given a fruit tree, those that remain are for the most part not in

cultivation. Toward the west side of the district, along Santa Barbara Drive and Bloomfield Drive, the lots are much larger and heavily treed, nearly wooded in character, resulting in a pronounced park-like character. This contrasts with eastern sections of the district, where a slightly more orderly, manicured character emerges. The landscape, however, is never formal or rigid; it retains a character of naturalism throughout the community.

The western section of the district near the House in the Woods is the least heavily wooded. Here, expansive lawns complement the horizontality of the predominant ranch houses. The streets are primarily radial here in plan, but read as gently curving in person, and the broad lawns and open spaces create an extremely open prospect which provides an interesting counterpoint to the wooded sections to the north. The architectural character here is quite different as well, because of the ranches, although the quality of construction and architectural integrity of the houses remains as consistently high as the remainder of the district. Although ranch houses are found elsewhere in the city, particularly to the far north, the examples here are the grandest and most architecturally distinguished in the district.

As noted earlier, small triangular parks are a recurring feature of the district. These occur where opposing curvilinear streets cross, or where the orthogonal streets meet the curvilinear ones. These result not only in a pleasant open space, but create a unique vantage point in which one might view a number of houses fronting on different streets arrayed before them and radiating angles. Five such parks occur in the quadrant of the district south of Saratoga Boulevard and west of Santa Barbara Drive. Most are simply grassy open spaces, punctuated by evergreen shrubs that give a remarkably suburban feel to the landscape. The largest of these five is that found at the intersection of Saratoga Boulevard, Rackham Drive and Woodworth Way. This park features playground equipment and regular arrays of ornamental trees. It functions as a significant gathering space for residents interested in passive or active recreation. The largest park overall is known as Goldengate Park and is found on Rainbow Drive where it meets the south side of the I-696 expressway. It is in part a result of freeway construction and undeveloped land, but in its open character ornamented with playground equipment, it feels like part of the original planning of the community and complements the neighborhood well. An additional small park may be found at the intersection of Wiltshire Boulevard and Somerset Place. One such piece of land that remains undeveloped and wooded is found at the intersection of West Goldengate Drive and Eldorado Place.

As stated above, the district is predominantly residential in character. The exception is the five- to seven-lane wide Southfield Road, which as a north-south commercial and office spine bisects the city and the district. Many of the structures on Southfield are non- contributing due to recent construction or lack of architectural integrity. Some, however, reflect the 1950s suburban character of much of Lathrup Village and reflect simple International Style design. Although many buildings along Southfield Road date from beyond the district's period of significance, the Southfield Road streetscape nevertheless reflects the commercial ambience Louise Lathrup apparently anticipated in her placing of the frontage.

Almost all of the district's houses were constructed between 1930 and 1940, and 1945 and 1960, although some date as early as 1925, and several non-contributing buildings date as late as 1995. The styles are drawn from various historical revivals, including Colonial, English Tudor, English Cottage, and Spanish Colonial. Additionally, small numbers of Modem houses are included, along with a large number of post-World War II ranch and split-level houses which characterize suburban development during that era. Another house type has been identified as the Lathrup Village House, related to the various revivals, but manifested in a range of styles that were created as a marketing device to sell a variety of buildings with different exterior details.

The Colonial Revival dominates the housing stock and some of the commercial property as well, creating a range of house types and details that suggest Colonial tradition without being rigidly historical. Each street in the district, however, is fully punctuated with examples of the range of styles noted above. The houses throughout the district vary in scale; smaller houses being found in the south center and east side of the district; larger homes to the west. Character varies widely, since houses are set on property subdivided into mainly forty-foot lots; but many owners purchased multiple lots, and hence streets tend to possess great contrast between wide and narrow lots. The aesthetic character of the district is made by the consistent use of masonry construction-most often brick, as dictated by the founder of the community. Stone, concrete block and stucco-or combinations of them-are also used.

One of the most distinctive aspects of the architecture of the district is the presence of extraordinary good examples of the range of post-war ranch house designs. Although united by a common sense of horizontality, the range of details and material use within this style as seen in Lathrup Village is very high. Brick, cut stone, enormous window openings sometimes wrapping comers, integration of unique details in glass block or decorative metal or wood posts and railings, even traditional details integrated into low-slung massing, suggest the degree of creativity applied to the creation of these houses. The collection of ranch houses in Lathrup Village is outstanding.

The architectural character of the buildings in the district will be discussed in more detail in the Statement of Significance.