Clifton Park, located in the northwestern corner of Lakewood, Ohio along the bluffs of Lake Erie and the Rocky River Valley, was the brainchild of a group of real estate developers who envisioned it as a summer resort in 1866. Amenities included beaches and boating, picnic groves, a dance hall, and beer gardens. After many successful years the resort's popularity began to wane, so in 1895 the Clifton Park Association turned their focus toward an exclusive residential community.

The association hired famed landscape architect Ernest W. Bowditch to design Clifton Park. Bowditch was nationally known for his work on many Newport, Rhode Island estates, including the renowned Breakers, as well as the communities of Tuxedo Park, New York. He was also behind a few other projects in the Cleveland area, including Rockefeller Park, the Euclid Heights allotment, and Shaker Lakes on Cleveland's east side.

Unlike the grid pattern of most other Lakewood neighborhoods, Clifton Park was conceived as a collection of winding streets covering about one-half square mile. The first home was built as a summer retreat by attorney William Starkweather, the son of former Cleveland mayor and judge Samuel Starkweather. The oldest home still standing is at 17862 Lake Road, built in 1899 by the prominent Cleveland business executive John G. Jennings.

One of the gems of this new community was the Clifton Club, located at 17884 Lake Road, which opened its doors on August 22nd, 1903. The club served as Lakewood's social center for many years with events such as lunches, dinners, teas, informal dances, and weddings. Unfortunately, the building burned down on January 11, 1942. A new building was placed on the original site in 1950 where it still stands today.

In the early 1960s, Clifton Park was cut in two when Clifton Boulevard was extended to a new bridge built over the Rocky River. Many homes were razed and the winding streets were now disconnected. Property values south of Clifton dropped, and when the neighborhood was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, only the streets north of Clifton were included.

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Opened in 1964, the Clifton Park Bridge connects the cities of Rocky River and Lakewood. It is a section of Clifton Boulevard and the Grand Army of the Republic Highway (U.S. Route 6). The bridge crosses the Rocky River very close to where it empties into Lake Erie.

The Clifton Park Bridge was built by the State Highway Department to alleviate the congestion on the Detroit Rocky River Bridge. The project, however, was not without controversy. The seizure of private property through eminent domain was eventually required in order to build the bridge. Apart from angering the affected citizens, this measures would also mean that each city would lose the money from the property taxes on those sites. The tax issue led to a more than ten-year-long dispute between the cities of Rocky River and Lakewood as the two sides could not agree on the location of the bridge. Rocky River supported the location even though the city would lose tax money. Lakewood on the other hand opposed the location because the bridge would go through the wealthy Clifton Park neighborhood on the northwestern side of the city and cause $1.5 million worth of property to be lost to eminent domain.

Other plans were proposed, such as increasing the traffic on the Hilliard Road Bridge and turning the Nickel Plate trestle into a double-decker bridge for both train and car traffic. The Hilliard Road Bridge plan was highly favored and carefully discussed. The basic question at the center of this debate was whether or not cities had the right to refuse the building of a major highway. This is also known as the "ordinance of consent." In the end, eight homes and fifteen other parcels of land were seized by the state under eminent domain in order to build the bridge with both cities losing valuable property. The Clifton Park Bridge was thus built by the state of Ohio over the objections of the local governments.

The unique curving streets of Clifton Park distinguish it from the rest of Lakewood's grid pattern. It was built starting in the late 19th century and features many historic mansions. It has been the home of many of greater Cleveland's most prominent citizens. Despite Lakewood's fears, the Clifton Park neighborhood continued to thrive even after the Clifton Park Bridge controversy, remaining alive and well even today.

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