In 1923 former chief engineer at Ford Motor Company, Edward Gray began the construction of his lifelong ambition of a private community for Yachtsmen. He called the neighborhood Graystone and soon had enlisted members of the Fisher (Fisher Body), Koerber (Koerber Brewing) and Gar Wood (Gar Wood Boats) as early landowners in the gated complex.
Amid the pre-Depression euphoria several of these families built lavish mansions
replete with amenities ranging from wet and dry-docks to small golf courses and even a berth for the Gar Wood Seaplane. The largest mansion was built by the Fisher family on 46 lots or 40 acres of the 67 acre subdivision. Serial Bachelor Lawrence Fisher spent $1.5 million in 1928 for what would become a folly to rival Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose.
By 1929's Black Friday, very few, even among the vastly rich, were interested in buying lavish real estate no matter how demonstrable the quality of neighbors they could afford. And because Graystone did not officially open until 1931 it was doomed before it began. As with the rest of Detroit, Graystone and the Fisher Mansion began a slow, painful, and seemingly inexorable path towards decline.
Born in 1950, Alfred Brush Ford, heir to the Fisher Brother's Body-works, an early supplier to General Motors, as well as a member of the august Ford family, is thought to have gone off the rails sometime in the mid-1970's when he donated a substantial amount of his inheritance, as well as his ancestral Fisher Mansion to the Hare Krishna sect. ABF also changed his name to Ambarish Das. while his wife (nee' Elisabeth Reuther Dickman - daughter of UAW president Walter Reuther ) changed hers to Lekhasranvanti Dasi. Had AFB merely donated his property to the Krishna's he might have been hailed as a genius for getting a tax write-off on distressed real-estate. But sadly that was not the case. Shortly therafter, The Hare Krishna's began to renovate the Fisher Mansion , and redidicated in in 1983 as the Bhaktevdanta Cultural Center for International Society of Krishna Conciousness.
Apparently the Krishna's have proven to be good neighbors in what has become a bad neighborhood, although I doubt that would mollify many Fords or Fishers.
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ReplyDeleteRiverside Engine in Oil City, forgot to add the location.
ReplyDeleteHe actually called it "Grayhaven" and began advertising properties there in 1916. My grandfather worked for Edward Gray from 1906, where Gray started Riverside Engine Company, up to the 'Ford Days' from 1910 to 1914 and then continued with him until 1919 when he returned to Pennsylvania. Gray invited him back in 1937 and he interviewed with Gray and Gar Wood. Gray died in 1939 and grandpa (Elmer LeSuer) continued on to 1945 with Gar Wood when grandpa died. Must have been an amazing time to be in Detroit! Wish he had lived longer and I could have heard his stories.
ReplyDeleteThe images I do have are at https://www.flickr.com/gp/rushhourphoto/hR31wy