Ford Playhouse

Yesterday, BB and I went to the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe Shores. This is just north and east of Detroit by a few miles (see map below). The mansion itself had sixty rooms and was very impressive. I will tell you about that later. Here's what I want to tell you about today and tomorrow.

The PLAYHOUSE! When Josephine Ford was six years old, her grandmother had a "playhouse" constructed for her that cost $15,000. It is as big as some "real houses" that people live in all their lives. (It's not a big house, but here in Detroit, some people live in very small houses with their whole families. I myself lived for some time in a house smaller than this.) Everything inside was miniaturized to the size of a six-year old child, including the toilet. It had a real working stove and a real working ice box and small low light switches (this at time when electricity had not been around all that long).

It also had fairy tales all around the outside. I will hopefully tell you more about it tomorrow. I will tell you this, it cost $10 for adults to visit the Ford House and it was money well spent, I thought. We bought a membership ($35 for the year) and will be going back.

(Notice a strange but true thing on this map, that the USA is NORTH of Canada here. I believe this is the ONLY place where the USA is north of Canada, correct me if I'm wrong.)

(But I think there is an error on this map--if you look closely, you can see two roads, Mack and Moross. Mack divides Detroit and Grosse Pointe Farms, but the Grosse Pointe label goes over part of Detroit. That's the part where I live.)

(You can also see Belle Isle in the bottom center.)