Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Barton Hills, MI

Barton Hills is a tiny village in Washtenaw County, Michigan, covering just 0.76 square miles inside Ann Arbor Charter Township, immediately northwest of the city of Ann Arbor.

The village was established in 1913 by Alex Dow, president of the Detroit Edison Company, on land the utility had acquired to build Barton Dam and a string of hydroelectric stations along the Huron River.

Dow developed the property as an exclusive residential enclave for company executives, and in 1915 Detroit Edison hired the Olmsted Brothers — the landscape firm famous for designing New York's Central Park — to lay out its lots and winding roads, a plan still largely in use today.

Deed restrictions imposed when the subdivision was platted in 1924 required every house to be designed by a registered architect, and the wooded slope residents jokingly called 'Barren Hill' was deliberately reforested.

The Barton Hills Country Club, founded in 1917, is the only business establishment in the village, and in 2020 about 45 percent of Barton Hills residents were members.

In 1944, Detroit Edison gave the community outright to its residents, who took over maintaining its water system, roads and other municipal services themselves.

Barton Hills was incorporated on December 12, 1973, becoming the first home rule village in Washtenaw County, and in 2010 the village bought its own streets from the Barton Hills Maintenance Corporation.

The 2020 census counted just 316 residents in Barton Hills, up from 294 in 2010, and the village contains only around 140 homes.

Barton Hills sits on the north bank of Barton Pond, a Huron River reservoir created by Barton Dam, and its children attend Ann Arbor Public Schools — there are no schools located within the village itself.

A 2020 Detroit News profile dubbed Barton Hills Michigan's richest community, a reputation consistent with census figures that put its per capita income above $110,000 as far back as the 2000 census.