Grosse Pointe is a group of five affluent suburban communities on the coast of Lake St. Clair in the Detroit metropolitan area.

Beginning in the 1850s, wealthy residents of Detroit began building second homes in the Grosse Pointe area, and soon afterward, hunting, fishing, and golf clubs appeared.

Some grand estates arose in the late 19th century, and with the dawn of the automobile after 1900, Grosse Pointe became a preferred suburb for business executives in addition to a retreat for wealthy Detroiters.

The revelation of this practice moved the state corporation and securities commissioner to issue a regulation to bar the licensing of real estate brokers who discriminated on the basis of race, religion, or national origin.

Public hearings brought the national attention to the real estate discrimination situation in Detroit, which resulted in the expansion of open housing activity in the city.

As the automobile became the primary method of transportation and the rail line was decommissioned, the vista of what became Lake Shore Drive gradually improved.

Over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, Grosse Pointe has gained a reputation as a notable American suburb; entrepreneurial leadership, recreational activities afforded by the Great Lakes waterway, an international border with Canada, and a focus on quality of education contributed to the successful development of the region.

Grosse Pointe Farms is home to "The Hill" district, located on a small bluff, which includes offices, stores, restaurants, and the main branch of the public library.

Near its "Cabbage Patch" district, Grosse Pointe Park has retail and restaurants on multiple cross-streets, as well as a farmer's market held weekly during the warm months.

Newspapers and community organizations generally serve all five cities, as do the public library and school system, but municipal services are separate.

Designed by Horace Trumbauer as a Louis XV styled château, Rose Terrace was an enlarged version of the firm's Miramar in Newport, Rhode Island.

The Italian Renaissance styled Russell A. Alger House (1910), at 32 Lakeshore Dr., by architect Charles A. Platt serves as the Grosse Pointe War Memorial.

[9] Many noted architects designed works in Grosse Pointe including Albert Kahn, Marcel Breuer, Marcus Burrowes, Chittendon and Kotting, Crombie & Stanton, Wallace Frost, Robert O. Derrick, John M. Donaldson, Louis Kamper, August Geiger, William Kessler, Hugh T. Keyes, George D. Mason, Charles A. Platt, Leonard Willeke, Eliel and Eero Saarinen, Field, Hinchman, and Smith, William Buck Stratton, and Minoru Yamasaki.