Edsel requested that Jens Jensen build a generous playground for the children, with space for sports in the summer and ice skating in the winter. By the late 1930s, the Ford children had outgrown the need for the play space. Eleanor and Edsel then asked Marshall Johnson, Jensen's son-in-law and successor, to convert the area to a cutting garden, but he instead created a simple garden with a central reflecting pool and an ever-changing array of annuals and perennials.