Originally established by Detroit Edison president Alex Dow on land acquired for the Barton Dam, Barton Hills was designed as an exclusive, forested residential enclave just outside Ann Arbor.

In the early 1900s the land now occupied by Barton Hills Village was used for cattle grazing by a local firm, Towar Dairy.

Around 1910 the Detroit Edison Company needed to increase its electrical generating capacity and decided to construct a series of dams and power stations along the Huron River.

For that purpose they purchased 2,000 acres and water rights along both sides of the Huron River, including the Towar Dairy property.

[6][7] Land owned by the company was also used for agricultural purposes, including farms, dairy cattle, and fruit orchards.

[7] Dow and his wife Vivienne selected a site just north of the Barton Dam, on former pastureland, for their own house.

In 1915, the company contracted with the Olmsted Brothers, famous for their park and subdivision designs, as landscape architects for the new community.

[6][8] The Olmsted Brothers architectural firm, designers of Central Park in New York City, were employed to lay out lot lines and roads which they did in great detail.

[9] The Barton Hills Country Club, the only business establishment within the village, was founded in 1917.

[7] The subdivision was in its early years considered too far from Ann Arbor to be attractive, and grew slowly.

The economic depression of the 1930s slowed all types of building, and it was only in the post-World War II years of the 1950s and 1960s that construction of private homes resumed in earnest.

[9] The company shareholders decided to make an outright gift of its holding to the residents of the community in exchange for assuming responsibility for maintaining the water system, roads, and other municipal services.