Why is there still a 35-acre island in the center of Orchard Lake with no house and nobody living on it? Lakefront has been built out around it for more than a century, and the island has stayed wooded. Its official name answers part of the question. Apple Island is the Marjorie Ward Strong Woodland Sanctuary. West Bloomfield School District keeps it as a nature preserve with several archaeological sites, according to the Greater West Bloomfield Historical Society.
The rest of the answer comes from one family's decisions about land. Those decisions get a public evening on Wednesday, November 11. The same historical society opens its museum twice this month, and the museum building has its own story. That story runs through a lakeside hotel and a village decision in 1929.
A Lumber Fortune That Ended Up Protecting Trees
David Ward made his money by measuring forests. The Ward Family Papers at the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library record that he surveyed northern Michigan pine land for large operators. His fee was one-fourth of the land he surveyed. Over time he gathered 800 million feet of pine in Michigan, and newspapers estimated his estate at $15 million when he died in 1900.
Orchard Lake was where the family lived. Ward bought a 200-acre farm on the lake in 1862 and raised four children there. After the family moved to Detroit in 1881, they kept spending summers at the farm, and in 1893 Ward built a $30,000 house on the lake.
His son Willis is the one whose choices residents can still see. The Bentley finding aid says Willis gave the land that allowed Orchard Lake Country Club to organize. It also says he bought Apple Island for conservation, worked in the good roads movement and wrote at length about Orchard Lake's history. In other words, the man who protected the island also wrote much of its early history.
After that purchase, the island stayed with the family for more than half a century.
- 1915. Willis Ward acquires Apple Island.
- Early 1920s. He builds a house on the island.
- 1946. Lightning strikes the house and it burns.
- After Willis's death. Ownership passes to his children, Marjorie Ward Strong and Harold Lee Ward.
- 1970. After Marjorie's death, the family deeds the island to West Bloomfield School District, as she had wished, to keep it preserved. It is dedicated as the Marjorie Ward Strong Woodland Sanctuary on October 11, 1970.
- 2018. The National Park Service approves the island for the National Register of Historic Places as a site of archaeological significance. The community celebrates the listing on June 7, 2019.
Marjorie Ward Strong's husband adds a link to this month's dates. The Bentley record identifies Frederick S. Strong Jr. as a career Army officer and an early founder of the city of Orchard Lake. The talk about his wife's family falls on Veterans Day.
What the Preserve Protects
Seen from a dock, the island looks like a stand of oaks. According to the historical society, it is three-eighths of a mile long and a quarter mile wide, with more than a mile of shoreline. Its highest point is about 31 feet above the normal level of Orchard Lake. The society describes it as holding an example of every type of ecological system identified in southeastern Michigan. That includes oak forest, bogs and a range of soils and shore edges, plus more than 400 species of trees and plants, many of them rare in Oakland County.
It is not open for drop-in visits. The public can visit during the society's annual Apple Island Tours, and group tours can be arranged. The society's group tour page names the arrival point as Ward's Landing on the island's southwest shore.
"Known as the 'Timber King of Michigan,' David Ward made his fortune in the lumber industry. What people may not know is the pivotal role Ward and his family played in Orchard Lake's development and natural preservation."
That is how the society's events page describes the November 11 program, "Local Titans: The David Ward Family & Their Contributions to Orchard Lake." Researcher Lana LaFortune presents it from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Main Meeting Room of the West Bloomfield Library, 4600 Walnut Lake Road. Admission is free.
The Museum Building Was Once a Lakeside Hotel
The same family history runs through the building where the society keeps its collection. The Orchard Lake Museum at 3951 Orchard Lake Road stands where the Orchard Lake House tavern opened in 1857 to serve stagecoach travelers. According to the society's history of the museum, the site later became the Orchard Lake Hotel, which served the resort community that grew up around the lake.
The hotel ran from 1869 until 1929, when Orchard Lake Village bought it. Most of it came down in 1939 and was replaced by the smaller Orchard Lake Village Hall, which is the building the museum and historical society use today. The society says the present building includes materials salvaged from the old hotel. Anyone walking in this month is standing in a village hall built partly from the resort hotel that once stood on the site.
The museum normally opens on second Sundays and third Fridays from 1 to 4 p.m. It closes on holiday weekends and on days when the society runs a program somewhere else. Both November openings fall on that regular schedule, and each has a different focus.
A Revolutionary War Veteran Who Farmed Near 14 Mile
The Sunday, November 8 open house centers on the society's military collection, with uniforms, gear, photographs and newspaper articles. It is free, and donations are welcome. Visitors are also invited to share or donate their own families' military stories and objects. Before that, the society brought its military memorabilia exhibit to West Bloomfield Parks' Heroes Appreciation Breakfast on November 3.
The open house features one local figure in particular, Levi Greene. The society's Winter 2026 newsletter tells his story. Greene was born on June 6, 1759, and enlisted in 1776 for nine months as a ranger from Albany County, New York. He fought at the Battle of Bennington in 1777.
He came to West Bloomfield decades later. His son Zephaniah Green had arrived in Detroit in 1832 and bought the first 80 acres of what grew into a 160-acre family farm. The newsletter places that farm at the northwest corner of today's Halsted and 14 Mile roads. Levi and his wife Asenath moved there in the late 1830s, most likely in 1838, and stayed in the township for the rest of their lives. Asenath died in 1847 and Levi in 1851. Both are buried at North Farmington Cemetery.
For the country's Bicentennial, the Quakertown Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a plaque at his grave. It reads "1776-1976" and records his service as a ranger and at Bennington. The society's archive also holds a photograph of the 1976 Memorial Day ceremony at the cemetery.
The Calendar From Here
For anyone following these stories, or just looking for something to do, here are the dates left in November.
- Saturday, November 7. The Westacres Craft Show runs 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 3700 Westacres Drive. In the afternoon, West Bloomfield Parks holds its Pumpkin Playoff, a family competition, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Marshbank Park, 2805 Hiller Road.
- Sunday, November 8. The Military Collection Open House runs 1 to 4 p.m. at the Orchard Lake Museum. During that window, harmonica player Peter Madcat Ruth plays a Music @ Main set from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Main Library.
- Wednesday, November 11. "Local Titans" runs 7 to 8 p.m. at the West Bloomfield Library.
- Thursday, November 19. The society and West Bloomfield Parks run a bus trip from Drake Sports Park to the Pontiac Transportation Museum at 250 W. Pike Street, 12:30 to 3 p.m. It marks 100 years of the Pontiac brand and includes a docent tour. The cost is $23 for residents and $28 for nonresidents, and registration is through wbparks.org.
- Friday, November 20. The Orchard Lake Museum's regular open house runs 1 to 4 p.m. with the permanent exhibits on local history. Admission is free.
Orchard Lake Road's Newer Names Are Still on the Way
Down the road from the museum, the newest additions to Orchard Lake Road don't have firm dates yet. Patch reported on October 13 that Prime Concepts Detroit's Stoli's will open "sometime this fall" at 6203 Orchard Lake Road. Plans call for elevated comfort food, an 80-seat dining room with a lounge, bar, pool tables and dart boards, and a 50-seat patio in season. The West Bloomfield page for Game Day Social, at 6919 Orchard Lake Road, still says "Opening Soon." What Now Detroit reports that Seven Sundays Coffee is targeting spring 2027 for its location at The Boardwalk, 6925 Orchard Lake Road.
For now, the openings on this road with confirmed dates are at 3951 Orchard Lake Road, on November 8 and November 20.
Homes around Orchard Lake often come with stories like the Wards', including original land purchases, family ownership over generations and buildings reused for new purposes. Cindy Kahn Real Estate works with families on legacy and lakefront moves throughout West Bloomfield, and that work includes documenting a home's history alongside the photography and pricing. Request Your KahnCierge Consultation to talk through what your Orchard Lake home's records and story can bring to a sale.