Edsel & Eleanor Ford House

The Edsel & Eleanor Ford House is one of Metro Detroit’s genuine architectural landmarks — a 1929 Cotswold-cottage-style mansion on 87 lakefront acres, designed by Detroit’s most famous architect, Albert Kahn, with landscape design by Jens Jensen. Edsel was Henry Ford’s only son and Ford Motor Company’s president; he and his wife Eleanor raised four children here, entertained Diego Rivera among their circle of artists and industrialists, and once staged a full-size replica pirate ship party on the estate’s lagoon for their son William’s 21st birthday, with Frank Sinatra performing live.

Guided tours move through roughly 20 of the house’s 60-plus rooms, including Art Deco spaces designed by Walter Dorwin Teague, sterling silver kitchen counters, and a hidden darkroom behind a panel in Edsel’s office. The 87-acre grounds, with their wetland boardwalk and Lake St. Clair shoreline, are open separately for a picnic-and-stroll visit without a house tour, and the estate now includes two on-site dining options.

On our radar for the single best piece of Ford family history open to the public, or for a lakefront afternoon that doesn’t require a house tour ticket at all.