The development of Rosedale Gardens began in 1925 with the platting that August of the Rosedale Gardens Number 1 subdivision at the southwest corner of Plymouth and Merriman Roads. The location, although sixteen miles from downtown Detroit, was a prime one in that it fronted on Plymouth, which ran straight east toward Detroit and connected w.ith .Grand River Avenue heading downtown, and Merriman, which was then planned as part of a major north-south route to be known as Imperial Highway. Platting of Rosedale Gardens No. 2 followed before the end of the year, and b'/ the beginning of the following May two more Rosedale Gardens plats had been filed. These subdivisions were only the first parts of a large scale development the Sheldens envisioned on a full mile square section of property they acquired.

Rosedale Gardens' developer was Shelden Sons, a Detroit real estate firm established in 1919 by Allan, Alger, and Henry Shelden (the Plymouth Road Development Corporation was not a Shelden business). The three were the sons of Henry D. Shelden, Detroit capitalist and financier, and grandson of Allan Shelden. The first Allan Shelden (1832-1905), coming to Detroit from New York state in 1855, soon became a partner in the Zachariah Chandler & Co. wholesale dry goods house, and in 1866 "succeeded to the business under the head of Allan Shelden & Company". The store, from which he retired in 1890, may have been the basis of his business success, but he also made successful investments in real estate, banking and insurance, railroads, and industry. Son Henry D. Shelden (1862-1941) built upon his father's success in real estate investments. Henry D. Shelden and the three sons had offices together in the New Penobscot Building and then the Buhl Building during the 1920s. During 1924-25 the Sheldens incorporated as Michigan corporations the following real estate and development firms:

Shelden Construction Co., incorporated December 9, 1924, with Alger Shelden as president, Allan as vice-president, and Henry as secretary and treasurer.

Shelden Sons, real estate, incorporated March 12, 1925, with Henry Shelden as president, Allan as vice-president, and Alger as secretary and treasurer;

Shelden Land Co., incorporated August 7, 1925, with Alger Shelden as president, Henry as vice-president, and Hiram E. Hees as secretary and treasurer;

Shelden Sons Sales Co., incorporated August 25, 1925, with Henry as president and treasurer, Charles W . Erickson as vice-president, and St. Clair 0 . Merrill as secretary; and

In the 1932-33 city directory, H. D. Shelden Sons, real estate, including Henry and Alger; the Shelden Land Company, with Alger as president, Henry as vice-president, and Hiram Hees as secretary-treasurer; and Shelden Sons Sales Company, with Henry as president and Allan and Alger as vice-presidents, are listed. By 1936 there is only the Sheldon Land Company, with Alger as president, Henry as vice-president, and Hiram Hees as secretary-treasurer. The 1941 directory, the last until the early 1950s, still lists the company, but without details.

Rosedale Gardens followed what was probably Shelden Sons' initial development, Rosedale Park, located at Grand River Avenue and Fenkel in then Redford Township just beyond Detroit's northwest edge. Another development group platted Rosedale Park's first subdivision in 1916 and platted Rosedale Park No. 4 in 1921, but Henry D. Shelden and his wife Caroline were involved in platting Rosedale Park Nos. 2 and 3 in 1919 and perhaps later parts. The 1925-26 and later 1920s directories list Shelden Sons as the owners of Rosedale Park as well as Rosedale Gardens, and Shelden Sons and the Shelden Sons Sales Company in their promotional booklets for Rosedale Gardens described Rosedale Gardens as the outgrowth of Rosedale Park. "Rosedale Park is today the materialization of an ideal. Rosedale Gardens tomorrow will be an even greater achievement" (Shelden Sons, Have a Home of Your Own). "The name SHELDEN needs no introduction. It is inseparably bound up with ROSEDALE PARK. As we completed Rosedale Park so we intend to complete its companion development ROSEDALE GARDENS" (Shelden Sons Sales Co., Rosedale Gardens. Where You Can Live With Pride).

Shelden Sons promoted Rosedale Gardens as a place protected from "industrial expansion or undesirable neighborhoods" because of the distance from the city- "out far enough to make sure the children are breathing fresh air" - its location in a mile square tract of land controlled by the developers. The neighborhood character would be protected by the planning of commercial development along the Plymouth and Merriman Road frontages of the initial platted area that would be strictly controlled by building restrictions attached to the deeds. They touted the accessibility of the development to downtown Detroit and to key employers by roads that passed by or were easily reached from the site. They noted the quality of the land: "The land lies high, dry, level, with a rich loam top-fertile for velvety lawns and luxuriant gardens. No sand dunes and ravines make expensive difficulties for the home landscape gardener'' (quotes from Shelden Sons, Have a Home of Your Own). Rosedale Gardens' first two plats were filed in 1925. Plat No. 1, approved August 13, 1925, was located at the northeast corner of the mile square tract, at the southwest corner of Plymouth Road and today's Merriman Road, then identified as Imperial Highway. The plat included the frontage along Plymouth's south side from Merriman west eight blocks to today's Hubbard Street (then labeled Pembroke) and along the west side of Merriman from Plymouth south one block to Elmira Street (then called Ben Lomond).

These frontages were divided into narrow-fronted commercial lots smaller than the "inland" residential lots. The plat also included the residential streets on the east side of the nominated district, from Arden west to include Berwick and from Plymouth on the north south one block to Elmira Street. Plat No. 2, approved August 26, 1925, greatly expanded this area in an L-shaped form that extended west to Hubbard and south to Orangelawn Street (then called Duncan Avenue). It ran from Berwick west to Hubbard between the commercial frontage along Plymouth's south side and Elmira Street and from Plymouth Road west to Hubbard between Elmira and Orangelawn. Plat 4, approved April19, 1926, completed the area encompassed by the district between Orangelawn and West Chicago Streets.

Other than Plat No. 3; which encompassed the commercial frontage along Plymouth Road's south side west of Hubbard, no further platting of Rosedale subdivisions took place until the 1940s. The streets in the 1925-26 area- originally Arden, Melrose, York (now Auburndale), Berwick, and Ben Lomond (now Elmira)- were originally named for places in Robert Burns' poetry. Distinctive limestone gate piers of Gothic design marking the entrances to the streets off Plymouth Road and at the corner of Merriman and West Chicago form one of the features the Sheldens provided to add character to the development.

Rosedale Gardens' first nine homes were begun in 1925. The Harsha family was reportedly the first to occupy a Rosedale Gardens house, moving into 11317 Arden on January 14, 1926 (Sanderson, 1). AmOng those who built in Rosedale Gardens in its first year were Daniel McKinney, whose farm became part of the Rosedale Gardens site (11415 Melrose); Carson Johnston, a Shelden Land Company salesman (11301 Auburndale); and Warren and Hazel Mason, Warren an architect with the Albert Kahn firm (11315 Auburndale). As an incentive to early purchasers, the Sheldens offered a free Ford automobile to each of the first twenty-five purchasers. The Harshas, along with Jason B. Folsom, whose family occupied 11401 Auburndale in February 1926, were among those who received free Fords (Sanderson, 1). During 1926 sixty-one homes were built.

The period 1925-29 marks the first major phase of building in Rosedale Gardens. During that period 121 homes were constructed. In addition a small grocery, with gas pump, opened at the Plymouth/Berwick intersection in 1926. School enrollment in the Elm District in which Rosedale Gardens was located grew rapidly, so that in October 1926 the district built an additional temporary classroom building. In 1927 the district built a new Rosedale Gardens School on ten lots donated by Shelden Sons Company. A Rosedale Gardens Presbyterian Church was soon organized and built a church nearby in 1928, and a Catholic church, St. Michael's, was completed in 1931 (the 1927 school and original St. Michael's Church have been demolished, while the 1928 Presbyterian church now forms a small part of a large complex).

Rosedale Gardens marked the beginning of suburbanization in Livonia Township, but within the next few years prior to the Depression additional developers bought up farms and platted other subdivisions. The Depression killed much of this planned development. Many of the developers failed and lost their properties. Further development of Rosedale Gardens continued, but at a slow pace, during the early 1930s.

With the beginnings of an economic turnaround in 1935, the pace of development picked up again. In the 1935-41 period ending with direct American involvement in World War II, 250 more homes were built in Rosedale Gardens. During the World War II years 1942-45 only seven houses were built in the district area. In the early post-war years 1946-48 another fifty houses were built. At the end of 1948 the original part of Rosedale Gardens encompassed by the district contained 428 houses. In the years 1949-60 an additional one hundred homes were built. Since then only forty more homes have been built.

Among the Rosedale Gardens houses built in the late 1930s the 1937 homes at 11401 , 11405, 11407, 11314, 11324, and 1141.8 .Cranston Street stand out as model homes reportedly built by the Kelvinator Company to promote central air conditioning (Sanderson, 4-5). Kelvinator had a plant in Detroit and built at least one other group of eleven homes during that same year at Strathmoor and Mark Twain Avenue in Detroit near the plant ("Kelvinator's Detroit Test," 26-27; "Air- Conditioned Homes- Standardized Floor Plans," 28-30). The J. L. Hudson department store of Detroit furnished four 1937 "KELVIN Budget Homes" in Rosedale Gardens to be sold as furnished as demonstrations of building and furnishing on a budget. Two of the addresses correspond with those listed by Sanderson, but the Hudson demonstration also included "Kelvin Budget Homes" at 9628 Cranston and 11028 Pembroke (J. L. Hudson Co.). Kelvinator reportedly discontinued the experiment because of lack of demand due to the cost.

The Shelden Land Company began platting additional Rosedale Gardens subdivisions with No. 6, a small section of lots along Hubbard's west side, in 1941 and No. 7, a replatting of the formerly commercial frontage along Merriman Road's west side into residential lots, in 1944. Additional Rosedale Garden subdivisions followed down to No. 18 in 1959 by the Shelden.Land Comp.any, an.d two adjoining Rosedale Meadows subdivisions were also platted in 1955 by a Shelden heir, Elizabeth Shelden Warren, under the Warren Corporation name. The entire Rosedale Gardens area, like Livonia as a whole, was largely built up during the period from the late 1940s to the 1960s.