Fair Lane

Fair Lane was Henry and Clara Ford’s final and grandest home — a 31,000-square-foot limestone estate on 1,300 acres along the Rouge River, with gardens designed by Chicago landscape architect Jens Jensen and a Thomas Edison-laid cornerstone on its private powerhouse. Frank Lloyd Wright even worked on the initial design before departing for Europe mid-project. Henry and Clara lived there for over 30 years, hosting friends like Edison and Harvey Firestone, until Henry’s death in 1947.

The estate has carried a haunted reputation for decades, with the most persistent story centering on the ghost of a former butler said to appear inside vehicles parked on the grounds. The main house is currently closed for a multi-year restoration led by the same nonprofit that operates the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House, so there’s no interior tour to test the legend on right now — but the grounds, gardens, and powerhouse exterior are free and open to the public seven days a week, and the house periodically opens for special events and restoration sneak peeks.

On our radar for the grounds alone — genuinely gorgeous river-side landscaping design — with the promise of a full haunted-house tour once restoration wraps.