Twenty years after his father founded Ford Motor Company in 1903, Edsel Ford began buying the hilly property that became his family's rural retreat at Haven Hill. At the 6,900 square foot hilltop Lodge, the Fords and their guests enjoyed a swimming pool, tennis courts, a motorized toboggan run, and spectacular views of the rolling scenery all around. The retreat reflected the new wealth and mobility created by the early automobile industry, and in the early 1900s automobiles made isolated rural settings like this more accessible to the wealthy and to people escaping the city for day trips in the countryside. Robert O. Derrick, the architect of the Lodge, also designed Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn and rustic buildings for Michigan State Parks in the 1930s.