Detroit Edison's president, Alex Dow, devote parted of the company's acquisition as an exclusive residential community for company executives. Dow and his wife Vivienne selected a site just north of the Barton Dam, on former pastureland, for their own house. In 1915, the company contracted with the Olmstead Brothers, famous for their park and subdivision designs, as landscape architects for the new community. At first a denuded hill sloping into the pond, jokingly referred to as "Barren Hill," the Olmstead Brothers plan prescribed that the area be reforested. When homes were constructed in the 1920s, restrictions attached to each deed stipulated that the homes must be designed by a registered architect.