Meadow Brook Hall
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Meadow Book Hall is a Tudor revival style mansion in in Rochester Hills, Michigan built between 1926 and 1929 by Matilda Dodge Wilson (the widow of auto pioneer John Francis Dodge) and her second husband, lumber broker Alfred G. Wilson. The mansion, located at 480 South Adams Road amidst a 1,500-acre estate, is now part of Oakland University.
Often referred to as one of America’s "castles", the 110-room, 88,000-square-foot mansion is currently the fourth largest historic house museum in the United States. It designed by William Kapp of the firm Smith Hinchman & Grylls. The playful Romanesque architectural sculpture that adorns the building was created by Corrado Parducci. Much of the original artwork collected by the Wilsons is still found at Meadow Brook including paintings by Rembrandt, Anthony van Dyck, Rosa Bonheur, Gilbert Stuart, Joshua Reynolds, John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough and sculpture by Antoine-Louis Barye, Frederic Remington, Cyrus Edwin Dallin, and Herbert Haseltine. The home and the surrounding estate, known as Meadow Brook Farms, are registered national and state historic landmarks.
In 1957, Matilda Dodge Wilson and her husband donated the entire estate, including Meadow Brook Hall, Sunset Terrace and all its other buildings and collections, along with $2 million to found Michigan State University-Oakland (now Oakland University). They lived in the Sunset Terrace home until his death in 1962. Mrs. Wilson returned to Meadowbrook Hall and lived there until her death in 1967.
The Meadow Brook Concours d'Elegance, one of the largest and most prestigious collector car shows in the world, is held annually on the grounds of Meadow Brook Hall. The 28th event was held August 6th, 2006.
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[edit] Map of Meadow Brook Hall
- Maps and aerial photos
- Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
- Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth
[edit] Sources
- Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, Shadowing Parducci, unpublished manuscript
- Wilson, Matilda Rausch Dodge, Debbie Patrick, ed., A Place in the Country: Matilda Wilson's Personal Guidebook to Meadow Brook Hall, Oakland University Press, Rochester, Michigan, 1998
