More about Meadow Brook:
The widow of one of the Dodge brothers (who happened to be an almost obscenely wealthy woman) and her second husband, a lumber baron (also quite well off financially) built a beautiful castle on some rolling land in Rochester, Michigan. They led happy lives filled with huge house parties, raising horses and dogs, and doing charity work.
Eventually they left the castle and all of its precious furnishings and art work and collections of rare books and other assorted small objects of great value to the state of Michigan. A major university was built in the back fields (Oakland University), a large outdoor concert venue for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra was built in another of the fields, a professional theater company found a home, and the beautiful mansion itself was turned into a museum.
During the summer, the mansion's beautiful grounds and gardens are home to art fairs and classic car shows.
During the holidays, the old castle/mansion is decorated with countless lovely Christmas trees and decorations, and people come from far and wide to tour the house in its Christmas finery.
It is well worth the tour. The regular furnishings of the house are lovely - from jade tables in the bathrooms and the gold plumbing fixtures to the silk wall paper and stained glass windows. As the second husband was a lumber baron, the house is filled with wood - and some of it stunningly carved. And the curio cabinets are still filled - whether with French crystal pieces or collections of china and/or stone elephant statuettes.
Throw in the beautiful holiday decorations, and you could easily spend many happy hours there, seeing the lovely castle and all of its beautiful furnishings.
After leaving Meadow Brook, we went to Lake Orion, my home town. I had not been there for a few years, as I know few people there anymore. But what used to be the Orion House restaurant had been turned into a pleasant sports bar with fairly decent food, and we happily ate dinner there, before a country drive past numerous lakes to Clarkston.
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