Maple Grove Park Offers Another – Palmer Woods for Folks of Moderate Means

Clever marketing for a Detroit-area subdivision in the mid-1920s.

“In the illustration below you will notice how the nationally known city planner, T. Glenn Philips, has escaped making Maple Road Park just another ordinary subdivision…Notice the winding drives, the graceful curves of the streets, the well laid out plan, which are not characteristics of the usual developments where the lots are moderately priced.” – text, upper center.

This ephemeral mailer was distributed in 1926 by Basset & Smith, Inc. and Walter Gerkhe Co., two Detroit-area real estate firms that partnered in the development of Maple Road Park, a suburb north of the city. Amenities like transportation accessibility, moderate prices, shaded streets, and an ideal location are celebrated throughout the descriptive text. Comparisons are made to Palmer Woods, an affluent neighborhood where many of the citizens wealthiest citizens lived (and still do).

A large map shows the subdivision, designed by T. Glen Philips, with tree-lined streets and situated adjacent to the buses and electric lines along Main Street. An inset emphasizes the close proximity to nearby attractions and easy access to the Ford Motor Company downtown. Philips was an active landscape architect who served on the Detroit City Plan and Improvement Commission from 1909 to 1919. According to MIT,

“Phillips had a particular interest in planning subdivisions, where “he combined the landscape architect’s interest in the development of the individual home and the preservation of natural beauty with the city planner’s concern for a workable and orderly community.”

Source: MIT