The Cranbrook Educational Community is an educational, research, and public museum complex located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This National Historic Landmark was established in the early 20th century by George Gough Booth, a wealthy businessman, and his wife, Ellen Scripps Booth. The community includes Cranbrook Schools, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, Cranbrook Institute of Science, Cranbrook House and Gardens, and the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research. The founders also built Christ Church Cranbrook as a central part of the educational complex, though it is managed separately by the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan. The large 319-acre (1,290,000 m²) campus originally began as a 174-acre (700,000 m²) farm purchased in 1904. The organization is named after Cranbrook, England, the birthplace of the founder’s father.

Cranbrook is well-known for its buildings designed in the Arts and Crafts and Art Deco styles. Eliel Saarinen was the main architect, while Albert Kahn designed Cranbrook House. Sculptors Carl Milles and Marshall Fredericks also lived and worked at Cranbrook for many years.

In 2024, the Cranbrook Educational Community received 3 Michelin Stars in the Michelin Green Guide, placing it alongside famous institutions like the Detroit Institute of Art and the Louvre.

Schools at Cranbrook

Cranbrook Schools include a co-educational day and boarding college preparatory "upper" school, a middle school, and Brookside Lower School.

In 1922, the Bloomfield Hills School was the first school to open on the Cranbrook grounds. George Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth founded the school, which was meant to serve local children. Over time, the Bloomfield Hills School became Brookside School. After its completion, the Booths planned to build Cranbrook School for Boys, a school for boys preparing them for college. Students from the Detroit area and other places would live there. George Booth wanted the school’s buildings to look like top British boarding schools. He hired Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen to design the campus. The first buildings were completed in 1928.

As the years passed, the Cranbrook School for Boys campus added buildings like Stevens Hall, Page Hall, and Coulter Hall. These buildings were mainly used as living spaces, but Page Hall had a smoking lounge and a shooting range. Other buildings, such as Lerchen Gymnasium, Keppel Gymnasium, and Thompson Oval, were also built. In the 1960s, the school added an advanced Science Building called the Gordon Science Center.

Recognizing that girls also needed a place to learn, Ellen Scripps Booth encouraged her husband to build a school for girls. She oversaw the project and named it Kingswood School Cranbrook. Unlike her husband, she let Eliel Saarinen design the campus freely. Instead of having many separate buildings, Kingswood School Cranbrook was built in one large building that included dormitories, a dining hall, an auditorium, classrooms, a bowling alley, a ballroom, and common areas. At first, the education at Kingswood School Cranbrook was considered a "finishing school," but this changed over time.

In 1986, the Cranbrook School for Boys and Kingswood School Cranbrook formed a partnership. The new school was named Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School.

Cranbrook Academy of Art

The Cranbrook Academy of Art is a graduate school for architecture, art, and design. It was founded by George Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth in 1932. In 1984, The New York Times wrote, "the effect of Cranbrook and its graduates and faculty on the physical environment of this country has been profound … Cranbrook, surely more than any other institution, has a right to think of itself as synonymous with contemporary American design."

Eliel Saarinen designed the buildings and led the school. He combined design ideas from the Arts and Crafts movement with those of the international style. The school continues to use an apprenticeship method of teaching. Small groups, usually 10 to 16 students in each class, making about 150 students total across all departments, study under one artist-in-residence for the entire length of their program. There are no traditional courses. All learning is self-directed, with guidance and supervision from the artist-in-residence.

Cranbrook Art Museum

The Cranbrook Art Museum is a museum that displays modern art. It has a permanent collection of artwork created by artists such as Charles and Ray Eames, Harry Bertoia, Maija Grotell, Carl Milles, Robert Motherwell, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein. The museum was completed in 1942 by architect Eliel Saarinen and is located in the same building as the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

The museum also provides tours of Saarinen House, which was carefully restored starting in 1977. The rest of the house was completed between 1988 and 1994. The museum is officially recognized by the American Alliance of Museums.

Sculptor Carl Milles created many artworks in Metro Detroit, including pieces at the Cranbrook Educational Community. These include the Mermaids & Tritons Fountain (1930), Sven Hedin on a Camel (1932), Jonah and the Whale Fountain (1932), Orpheus Fountain (1936), and Spirit of Transportation (1952), which is now displayed at the Cobo Center.

In 2009, the museum closed for renovations and expansion. It reopened in November 2011. The project restored parts of the original building designed by Saarinen, fixed structural issues, replaced windows, and updated the mechanical systems. The renovated museum now has year-round changing exhibitions and a new Collections and Education Wing. This addition provides 20,000 square feet (1,900 square meters) of space for storage and classrooms. Visitors can tour this area. The new wing uses an open storage plan, allowing the museum’s entire collection to be viewed.

Cranbrook Institute of Science

The Cranbrook Institute of Science has a permanent collection of exhibits that cover many areas, such as Earth, Space, and Life sciences. The museum also has a traveling hall where temporary exhibits are displayed, and these change every 3 to 9 months. The museum includes a planetarium and a large 20-inch telescope that visitors can use to look at the night sky on certain nights.

On the museum grounds, there is a life-sized statue of a Stegosaurus.

From 1946 to 1970, the institute gave the Mary Soper Pope Medal to recognize important work in plant sciences.

Cranbrook House and Gardens

Cranbrook House and Gardens are the main attraction on the Cranbrook Educational Community campus. The house, built in 1908 in the English Arts and Crafts style, was designed by Albert Kahn for George and Ellen Scripps Booth, the founders of Cranbrook. The roof is made of Ludowici tiles. Guided tours show ten rooms on the first floor, which display tapestries, hand-carved woodwork, and English antiques from the Arts and Crafts period. The upper floors are used for the offices of the Cranbrook Educational Community.

The 40-acre gardens, originally designed by George Booth, include a sunken garden, formal gardens, a bog garden, a herb garden, a wildflower garden, a Japanese garden, sculptures, fountains, large trees, and a lake.

Leonard Bernstein remembered writing parts of his Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety, on the Steinway concert grand piano at Cranbrook House while staying there in April 1946. Bernstein had come to Detroit at the request of Zoltan Sepeshy to conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at Music Hall. During his visit, he asked for a space to compose, and Sepeshy moved the piano from Cranbrook House to St. Dunstan's Playhouse.

Cranbrook House and Gardens are open to the public from May through October.

St. Dunstan's Playhouse

St. Dunstan's Playhouse is not officially part of the Cranbrook Educational Community. It is located on the Cranbrook grounds near the Cranbrook House. The Playhouse is a 206-seat theater. It is home to the St. Dunstan's Theatre Guild of Cranbrook. The guild was started in 1932 by Henry Scripps Booth, the son of George and Ellen Booth, who founded Cranbrook.

During the summer, the St. Dunstan's Theatre Guild performs at the outdoor Greek Theatre, which is next to the Cranbrook House. The Greek Theatre was restored between 1990 and 1991.

Historic landmark

In 1973, fourteen buildings that make up the Cranbrook complex were added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1989, they were named a National Historic Landmark because they are considered one of the most important groups of educational and architectural structures in America.

The buildings that are part of the complex include:

• Brookside School Cranbrook
• Buildings & Grounds Offices
• Christ Church, Cranbrook
• Cranbrook Academy of Art
• Cranbrook Foundation Office
• Cranbrook House & Gardens
• Cranbrook Institute of Science
• Cranbrook School
• Cranbrook School Auditorium
• Edison House
• Faculty Housing
• Greek Theater at St. Dunstan's
• Kingswood School Cranbrook
• Visitors Entrance