Fair Lane

01 / The story of this place

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Henry and Clara Ford built this fifty-six-room estate on the Rouge River between 1913 and 1915, hiring architect Marion Mahony Griffin, with Frank Lloyd Wright briefly involved in the design, and landscape architect Jens Jensen for the grounds. The Fords named it Fair Lane after Henry's ancestral home in Ireland and moved in by 1916, adding a private power plant, a laboratory and a boathouse on the river. Henry Ford lived here until his death in 1947; the estate later passed to Ford Motor Company and then to the University of Michigan-Dearborn, which used it as a campus building for decades. Fair Lane was named a National Historic Landmark in 1966. The nonprofit Henry Ford Estate has been restoring the deteriorated mansion since the 2010s, and it is due to reopen to visitors after more than a decade of work; the grounds and trails along the Rouge River remain open in the meantime.

1. Built 1913–1915 for Henry and Clara Ford on the Rouge River
2. Designed with Marion Mahony Griffin; Frank Lloyd Wright briefly involved
3. Henry Ford lived here until his death in 1947
4. National Historic Landmark since 1966
5. Mansion closed for restoration; grounds stay open