Historic house brings together 4 B's

 

What do the 4-B's, the Charter Township of Bloomfield, the City of Bloomfield Hills, the Bloomfield Hills School District and the Bloomfield Historical Society have in common besides "Bloomfield"?

An 1830's Greek Revival house that must be saved in order to continue telling their shared history.

When the property on which the house has stood was sold recently to the Mancini Development Company, the house did not fit into the plans for an upscale development composed of estate-sized homes. Recognizing the historic importance of the house, the Mancini brothers offered it to the City of Bloomfield Hills for $1 provided that the City would move it elsewhere by Spring of 2008.

Hills' Mayor Pat Hardy contacted Historical Society President Pam Carmichael, Township Supervisor Dave Payne and Schools Superintendent Steve Gaynor to determine the possibility of moving the farmhouse about a mile north to the School District's Bowers Farm.

In October 2007, all four bodies met in an unprecedented joint public meeting to discuss how to save the building, one of the last remaining examples of an architectural form that was once called "America's National Style" and particularly prevalent throughout Michigan during the middle of the 1800s.

Built as early as 1832, presumably by pioneer farmer James Benjamin, on a hundred acres of land adjoining the Bloomfield Centre Road (now Long Lake Road), the house has been home to a small number of owners. Their history exemplifies the changes in Oakland County's Bloomfield area from primarily rural and agricultural to country estates owned by some of the Detroit area's most prominent families, to a comfortable suburban community.

By the early part of the Twentieth Century three sisters, heirs of George Hendrie the "Father of Detroit's Street Railways" and one of the wealthiest men of his generation, bought the farmhouse and turned it into a country retreat and gathering place for their friends and relatives from Grosse Pointe. Jessie, Margaret and Sarah Hendrie were well known in Grosse Pointe for their many charitable activities - and for their love of riding and hunting. Along with their brothers George T. and William they were instrumental in founding the Bloomfield Open Hunt Club, across Long Lake Road from the home they chose to name The Covert.

In 1937, open ground for riding and hunting was diminishing as much of the neighboring farmland was being turned into smaller homesites. The Hendries sold the house to Carl O. Barton, founder of Barton Malow Construction. For the next seventy years the house was home to Carl and his family who lived a comfortable life among nearly 25 acres of woods, streams and gardens.

Time being of the essence, the 4-B's decided to hold their first-time joint meeting to determine both interest and feasibility. As a result of the meeting, the School Board voted to provide space in a newly created Bowers Farm Historic Park. By finally having a Farmhouse at the 85-acre Farm, numerous opportunities would be created to show children of all ages what life was like as Bloomfield, and the County as a whole, grew into maturity. It is also anticipated that once the house is moved it will become "home" to the Bloomfield Historical Society.

While researching the history of the house and the Bowers Farm, Society members discovered that half of the Farm was once owned by George T. Hendrie, brother of the Hendrie sisters. In a sense, then, the house will be staying in the family.

In November the 4-B's had a community-wide Open (Farm)House to show more than 400 residents of the area what had been hidden in their midst for more than a century and a half. More than $5,000 was raised as "seed money" to get the project started. It was important for the local community to understand what was involved because funding for relocating the house to its new site would be sought entirely from the private sector.

A new non-profit organization, Preservation Bloomfield, has been established by leaders of the Charter Township of Bloomfield, the City of Bloomfield Hills, the Bloomfield Hills School District and the Bloomfield Historical Society.

Now, with a June timetable for the move ahead of them, the 4-B's are actively soliciting the approximately $500,000 in cash and in-kind donations from citizens as well as local businesses that it is anticipated it will take to relocate the House on the Farm. Anyone interested in contributing to saving and preserving the historic Benjamin-Barton House can contact us here.

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THANK YOU!

It's THERE!
The Barton Farmhouse has come back to a Farm. Both sections made it successfully and are awaiting a more permanent foundation.

Thank you so much to all of you who have contributed to the enormous success of Part One from all of us at Preservation Bloomfield and the Save the Barton Farmhouse Committee.

Now comes the fun part. We need to put everything together again so that it becomes a living symbol of what a community can do to preserve its heritage and build for its future.

If you haven't contributed yet, or even if you have, think about adding some more (the Make a Donation button is over there on the left).

Come drive by what you've accomplished and see its potential.

It's a marvelous story and it's all yours!

What happened after the Groundbreaking

By Wednesday afternoon, July 9, excavation for the new basement for the Barton Farmhouse at the Bowers Farm had been completed and the two sections of the Farmhouse that will be moved had been separated from the newer (c 1920) additions and were on what are called 'cribs' getting ready for The Move.

Barton Farmhouse FUN WALK!!!

Please join us in walking behind the historic Barton Farmhouse as it moves from its current location to the Bowers School Farm on Tuesday, July 15th, where the community will be able to appreciate and enjoy it for years to come!

Date: Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Time: Anytime between 9:00 AM and 12 PM
Distance: About 1.5 miles (walk all or part!)

Pledge Form (PDF)

The Farmhouse Returns to the Farm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Betsy Erikson, 248-341-5422, berikson@bloomfield.org

Historic Barton House to hit the road:
Community invited to “ride” along as a celebration and fundraiser

Save The Barton Farmhouse -- A Letter to the Editor

A letter to the Birmingham Eccentric, Thursday June 26, 2008

A rare opportunity to contribute to generations of area residents to come is on the verge of being lost.

Preservation Bloomfield, an unprecedented union of government, schools and the public, is running out of time to save one of the first real homes built in this area. This is a chance to leave a vital legacy of those who made our area. Only if we honor and preserve the past, respecting the lessons that can be learned by the struggle to get from where we were to where we are, can we hope to be remembered ourselves as a generation that continued to shape the community of the future.

Why save this house? Two hundred years ago, this Oakland County area was frontier. A few trails cut across unsurveyed woods connecting remote forts and fur outposts. Twenty-five years later, a burgeoning community of farms and scattered villages that are today towns like Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Franklin, Southfield and Troy, had exploded across the virgin countryside. The swamps and forest were gone, replaced by open fields dotted with cabins and small homes much like the ones these settlers left behind when traveling here to tame new lands as their grandparents had done out east. Where Long Lake Road curved north away from swampland, to end at the Ogden farm on toady's Square Lake Road, a classic revival home, typical of the best of the era, began as home to such a family. It remains a sole survivor today, but only for a couple weeks longer unless action is taken now.

It is not often that we in industrialized society get to do anything that will last for generations.

The economy is tough. Everyone is fighting $4 gas and skyrocketing food costs. But this unique opportunity will not come again. If everyone will just search their hearts, and under their couch cushions, a contribution of loose change from everyone who reads this would be enough to make a huge difference. Please go to www.preservationbloomfield.com and help in any way that you can.

Ron Berndt, councilman

Village of Beverly Hills

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