White Lake Tutors Come To You

White Lake Township can be considered the cradle of automotive invention—at one point, multiple players in the early car industry had homes in White Lake, with factories and plants in urban Detroit. The famous Ford Family, which presided over the mass-produced innovation that the Model T represented in the 1920s, had residences in White Lake, including Edsel Ford, son of the famous Henry and inventor of the modern automobile. Edsel and his wife Eleanor constructed a sprawling home on the shores of Lake St. Clair on a site known as Gaukler. At the time, Edsel was a major collaborator in the advent of the Model A, which inherited much of the same fame and popularity as Henry Ford’s early Model T. The home, which is now a U.S. National Historic Landmark, was conceived of and designed by American architect Albert Khan, and its landscaping designed and implemented by Jens Jensen, an American landscape architect known for his deigns that feature the “long view.”

The Fords, taken with the traditional shape and form of the English cottage, wanted a home that would reflect the charm of country life with a certain grandeur. With Tudor peaks, diaper windows, wood paneling, and other old-world country features, Kahn’s design included sandstone exterior walls, a traditional slate roof with the stone shingles decreasing in size as they reached the peak, and moss with ivy grown across the house’s exterior. Construction on the house began in 1926, and took two years or so to complete.

With such a regal and traditional exterior, the interior of the home further reflected its hearkening to another day and age. The Fords imported antiques from Europe, from wood panels to stained glass to ornamentation and chimney features. The house featured an extensive art collection, as well, reflecting the couple’s status as serious museum benefactors in addition to members of the nouveau riche. After Eleanor’s death, many important paintings were donated to the Detroit Institute of Arts, including two original Paul Cézanne paintings and Vincent van Gogh’s “The Postman Roulin,” which hung in the Morning Room before the DIA received it in the 1970s.

The grounds, which Jens Jensen formulated with deliberation and purpose, give visitors and passerby partial glimpses of the home, with a winding drive that finally delivers the entire estate in all of its grandeur once one makes their way to the front entry. Jensen’s landscaping strategy was to keep landscaping natural and pristine-looking, with native vegetation intact, as if the gardens and acreage surrounding the home occurred naturally, with no force or compelling design. Gaukler’s sweeping views and larger than life proportions reflected the sweeping industry and wealth of the Ford family at its peak.

With tenacity and vision, the Ford family saw its innovation in the car industry balloon with success—still, today, Ford is a household name. This did not come without a persistent work ethic, which is the same ethic Grade Potential tutors bring to their appointments in White Lake. Tutors inherit and impart this same vigor and passion for work with each student they help achieve their desired academic success.