Historical (tree) roots

The crew has just put in a large elm tree outside our new Visitor Center. The original landscape architect for the historic estate, Jens Jensen, incorporated many elm trees into the estate's landscape.

Jensen's vision was to design Edsel and Eleanor's land to look like a natural Midwestern landscape. The landscapes for the new building will take cues from that design to help the new Visitor Center and Administration Building area blend beautifully with the rest of the estate.

As you can see in the photo above, it's interesting to see a tree of this size loaded into a truck and transplanted. It reminds us of the historical photos we have here in the Ford House historical collection, of large trees being added to the property in the late 1920s when the estate was built.

Check out some of the historical photos below:

As construction on our new Visitor Center and Administration Building continues, work outside on landscapes and also on the interiors of the buildings is progressing.

The buildings are set to open in 2021, bringing with them new exhibits, education spaces, a new restaurant, rental spaces and more.