The Maxon Estate

Detroit advertising executive Lou Maxon built what is now Gallaher Center in the early 1940s as a country home and a place to entertain clients and friends. The site had earlier been the Eureka Fruit Farm in the late 1800s, and in the early 1900s a gravel pit in what became Lake Norcentra supplied gravel and sand to contractors. Maxon, who founded his advertising firm in 1928, first drew customers with direct-mail services and later secured accounts including General Electric, Heinz, Packard, Pittsburg Glass, and Gillette. In 1940, Time magazine called his agency the largest in the Midwest and ranked his personal income 53rd in the nation. He developed the estate lavishly, finishing the house with oak and knotty pine walls, cathedral ceilings, five fireplaces, and five bathrooms, and landscaping 37 acres with gardens and imported large trees at an estimated cost of $500,000 for the house and grounds. In 1957, Maxon sold the estate to a board of directors for $200,000 to establish a Christian college, a purchase the Detroit News called an Oakland County beauty spot and one the founding board undertook with very limited resources and great faith. When the college opened in 1959, the mansion served as the library, reception areas, chapel, and for a time the home of the college president and his family. By 1971, when the college named the building for benefactors James and Bessie Gallaher, it had been converted to its present role as offices and classrooms.

Rochester Hills, Michigan · United States