Preservation Bloomfield

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.

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

News of the Benjamin-Barton House goes international

Garrison Keillor, Creator and Host of A Prairie Home Companion (heard statewide on Michigan Radio and internationally through the auspices of Public Radio International) said the following on his program broadcast live from Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor Saturday, June 14:

"Ann Arbor has a number of early 1800's Greek Revival homes while Bloomfield is trying to save one of its last. Its story can be found at www.preservationbloomfield.org."

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