The Henry Ford Square House (also known as the Henry Ford Honeymoon House)
from the state of Michigan, retrieved 1/4/10 is a single-family house located at 29835 Beechwood Avenue in

Garden City, Michigan Garden City is a city in Wayne County of the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,692. The city is part of the Metro Detroit region and is approximately west of the city of Detroit. M-153 (Ford Road) ...

. It was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1979 and listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1980.

History

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...

and Clara Jane Bryant were married on April 11, 1888. Soon after, they began construction on this house, then located at the corner of Ford Road and what is now the

Southfield Freeway M-39 is a north–south state trunkline highway in Metro Detroit area of the US state of Michigan that runs from Lincoln Park, on the south end, to Southfield on the north. The official southern terminus of M-39 is at the corner of Southfield R ...

.Sidney Olson
''Young Henry Ford: a picture history of the first forty years,'' Wayne State University Press, 1997, , p. 48 Clara drew the plans, specifying the kitchen, sitting room, parlor and bedroom. Henry built the house himself, using timber cut on the property and finished in the sawmill he operated. An expert carpenter helped with the fancy-work details, such as the turned

balustrades A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

. The couple moved into the house in about June 1889. Ford later added a workshop, where he experimented with gasoline-powered engines. The Fords lived in this house only until September 1891, when they left for Detroit. However, they retained ownership of the house until 1937, using it as a summer cottage. Ford gave the cottage to an employee, Robert Smith. After the Fords died, the land around the house was bought by the Ford Land Development Corporation, who told Smith to move the cottage to make room for freeway expansion; in 1952, it was moved to its present location. The house was listed on the

in 1980.

Description

The Henry Ford Square House is a 2-story square house, 31 feet on each side, with a mansard roof and

clapboard Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of these terms, is wooden siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping. ''Clapboard'' in modern Americ ...

siding. The center-entrance front facade has a window cap on the second-floor bedroom window. The interior of the house has a kitchen, dining room, living room, family room, 4 bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, and a full basement.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places listings in Wayne County, Michigan Houses in Wayne County, Michigan Houses completed in 1888 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Michigan State Historic Sites in Wayne County, Michigan National Register of Historic Places in Wayne County, Michigan Henry Ford