See our Visitor Garage fill with light and sound as glowing apparitions take our historic Dodge Motor Company vehicles on a winter joyride. Meadow Brook was built during a powerful time for Detroit’s automotive industry by Matilda Dodge Wilson, widow of auto pioneer John Dodge.
Read below for more about John Dodge and our automotive roots.
Although John Dodge never lived at Meadow Brook Hall (it was built years after his death), he is intrinsically linked to it through his impact on Meadow Brook Farms and the incredible Dodge Brothers wealth that enabled it to be built.
John Dodge was a man of great ambition, with an incredible drive and sharp turn of mind. Everything he and his brother Horace touched was successful.
This is true of Meadow Brook Farms. In the 12 years that John managed the property, he left an indelible impact with a flurry of investment, expansion and construction.
John expanded the Dodge Farmhouse with sleeping porches–designed to ensure a clear flow of air to be comfortable and healthy in a time of tuberculosis. He built tenant houses for the resident farmers and a greenhouse for Matilda to grow flowers and fruit year round – even oranges for fresh-squeezed juice. John planted an orchard of more than 700 fruit trees including cherries, peaches, pears, plums and 19 varieties of apple that are still producing fruit today.
He developed the Dodge Private Golf Course and built his private Golf Clubhouse in 1915. And John’s use of the property didn’t stop there.
He and Horace used the Meadow Brook Farms property as a proving ground to test the new Dodge automobile in secrecy. The pair did a lot of work there, treating it as a satellite office of the Dodge Motor Car Company. The Dodge brothers believed so much in the benefits of the outdoors that they even invited their employees from the city out to relax and rejuvenate.
