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
© 2008 preservationbloomfield.org
