Live like a king in Bill Ford's ex-residence
Are you looking for a unique property with plenty of land, 5,900 sq. ft. of living space and a beautiful view of a lake Huron the Huron River? Not sure? What if we told you the house belongs to Ford Motor Company Chairman Bill Ford? Well, if you have $3.95 Million and a desire to live in Ann Arbor, then this very well may be your dream home. The Fords moved down the street, so your children may even go to the same school. They'll be the kids with the full-time security detail and access to a corporate jet.
Mr. Ford's house has five bedrooms, a tennis court, in-ground pool, and a view that is remarkably like the one at the Henry Ford Estate in Dearborn. The house sits on 17.1 acres and has an amazing 650 feet of lake-frontage. The $3.95 Million selling price seems very firm, but since it's a Ford you can probably negotiate 0% financing.
Check out the house listing here.
[Source: Detroit Free Press via Jalopnik]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Duke 8:11PM (1/30/2007)
The Huron River maybe, Lake Huron is about 80 miles away.
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thomas 8:15PM (1/30/2007)
bad joke. bbbaaaddd
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zoomzoom 8:17PM (1/30/2007)
Huron River is in Ann Arbor; I did go to school with a Ford kid.
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Accordsforall 8:37PM (1/30/2007)
Hmmmm
As an architecture - type person.. the place looks quite nice for the outside. And Im sure its decorated quite nicely but sparce fro the inside.
I hope Mr Bill Ford JR enjoys his ride in his Ford Ranger to his multi-million dollar place.. while thousands of people get laid the F off. I think its the biggest load of hot monkey shix there ever was. Heck.. I hope the damn place gets burned down.. or some kind of hardship happens.. to compensate for the 1000s of people MR FORD JR let go.. cause his damn cars.. DONT F'IN SELL!!!!!!
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Jman196 9:20PM (1/30/2007)
that was a funny joke hahaha
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dave 9:33PM (1/30/2007)
lighten up accordsarejunk. whith the ford's fortune i'm surprised the house is'nt three times bigger. he could be a real prick and liquidate the entire ford company and take the money and run for god's sake. of course that would make you real happy. if you cared so much for ford employees, why would you sign your stupid name with such a moronic add?
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Mike 9:48PM (1/30/2007)
Accordsforall,
Man that would suck, nothing but Honda Accords all over the road. What a boring world you are aspire to live in.
First off, the Ford family has earned the right to live in luxury, it is the way it has been for eternity, the children of innovators and leaders get to reap the benefits of their parents, grandparents and great grandparents- get used to it.
Bill Ford Jr. came in to try to lead the company back after some really poor predecessors (Jac Nasar) just about killed it, when he realized it was important to bring someone else in who had experience turning around a giant, he did.
Also, just so you know, this particular family helped shape this country into the place it is today, bringing affordable transportation to the working class so that they could have the personal freedom to explore this great country. Henry Ford also helped America lead the industrial revolution by creating the assembly line and supporting this country in times of war by converting assembly plants from car plants to tank and airplane plants. Built to fight the invading Japanese. He also paid the less fortunate a fair wage in a time where most of the lower class were near slaves working for a pitance, taken advantage of by the upper class.
Your grandiose import manufacturers never created anything new and never helped this country in any respect. They only came here for the money we have, money that the Ford family helped bring here years ago.
If you want to buy a Honda, that's fine. But my friend, it is the people like you, who refuse to give the domestics a chance (even when the product is equal to the imports) that is costing Ford employees 1000's of jobs. Not a man pooring his life and fortune into the company his family built.
So get off your high horse and have fun in your Accord, I'll bet it's a great car. As for me I'd prefer a better styled, AWD, better quality Fusion for the same price. Thanks.
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Dave-in-PA 10:10PM (1/30/2007)
Yeah Mike..but before you get too teary eyed extolling the virtures of ol' Henry, remember too, the old Ford was also a known Nazi sympathizer and an suspected Anti-Semite. And while it's true he paid a better wage to fill his factories he also fired any worker who left their post for a moment, even to go to the bathroom. You peed in a can while you worked if you wanted to keep your job. Ford didn't care a bit about his workers. All he cared was that he HAD workers to keep his lines moving.
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george 10:32PM (1/30/2007)
#8 - part of the reason the industrial revolution was able to take off as it did was because of the over abundance of labor. specialization made skilled workers obsolete and unskilled workers interchangeable. henry ford had no trouble finding workers, regardless of what he paid them. there were enough starving immigrants to fill factories no matter what. the $5/day he paid his workers was superfluous in economic terms, as he could have filled his assembly lines for far less. the true value of paying his workers a relatively high wage was in the publicity FoMoCo received for doing so. while it's true that his management practices left a lot to be desired, ford's practice of higher pay raised wages for workers in all industries.
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lavardera 10:42PM (1/30/2007)
Well all that patriotic ford crap is nice, but Billy boy is the one that supposedly wanted to "green" the company, and indeed they did a great job on one of their plants, but I'd bet the place he moved to down the street isn't any smaller than this one. Hopefully its green and sustainable - gotta walk the walk if you are gonna talk the talk.
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danisaacs 10:48PM (1/30/2007)
Ann Arbor is a whore.
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dave 11:28PM (1/30/2007)
dave-in-pa, well said, but keep in mind when we went to war with the nazis he stepped up to the plate, saw the nazi's for what they really were and helped produced the war machine that destroyed hitler. true, the man was the boss from hell, and few remember the riots against ford that he put down with pinkertons, one that would rival the haymarket riots of chicago. his treatment of employees was nothing less than shamefull. thus began the rise of the uaw and other unions. most of the younger generation of today truly don't understand the value of unions then and now, they would rather spend time bashing them. but in the short of it all, we all still reap the benefits of what henry and the uaw have done to make this country second to none. like him or hate him, history tells the tale. like bill or hate bill, he has a lot of personal money to spend, and had the courage to admit he could'nt handle the job he gave up and stepped down.
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Nemo 11:37PM (1/30/2007)
Address is 5288 Geddes Rd, 48105 ;)
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Drew 12:39AM (1/31/2007)
Does anyone want to live in Michigan?
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GeoTracker 2:54AM (1/31/2007)
View of Lake Huron from Ann Arbor, 1 hour west of Lake Huron? Must be a super tall house.
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RamSport47 7:19AM (1/31/2007)
#7 Mike...VERY well said and #8 Dave...everyone should know their history as you do, then all of these moronic comments wouldn't show up (accordsnotforme and dave-in-pa)
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Edsel 8:31AM (1/31/2007)
The selective historical snapshots people are throwing around here is distressing because it is immensely more complex than "Ford was a Nazi sympathizer" or intimating capitalism is bad for labor. You people sound like the morons on TV and radio. And, if you really want to play that "game" then one can just as simply claim that Joe Kennedy was an ardent supporter of Hitler's Germany and the national one million+ protest (America First) against war was a Communist plot.
History really does teach us valuable lessons but not in the way it's being abused here.
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Jim in Tampa 8:51AM (1/31/2007)
As for the house . . . Looks like a tear-down to me. Nice property with an ugly house in the way.
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roadside observer 11:09AM (1/31/2007)
Some of you need to actually READ the Freep article. It makes no mention of Lake Huron - it says "650 feet of Huron River frontage." If you don't know the difference between a lake and a river, well, there's no hope for you.
It never ceases to surprise me how Ford detractors love to drag out the old, tired arguments about Henry Ford supposedly being a Nazi sympathizer, especially since such arguments have exactly ZERO to do with anything. Henry was anti-Semitic, but there's no evidence to indicate that he collaborated with the Nazis; further, he did go on the record in later years and recant all of his anti-Semitic remarks. And besides, what does it have to do with Ford Motor's current problems, or even with Bill Ford putting his house up for sale? Do any of you care to answer that?
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David in PA 11:26AM (1/31/2007)
You’re right “roadside”, it has nothing to do on the house. My brief comment was to Mike, who wrote at length about how great Ford’s legacy is. There’s nothing wrong with or “moronic”, as it was suggested, in what I said and I was not trying to invalidate Mike’s comments about what Ford did for the advancement of industrialization. But, however esteemed he may be in your minds for those accomplishments, the man had many faults and to me his faults are as significant as his virtues. In the 1920’s he wrote violently anti-Semitic opinions blaming Jews for instigating World War I, being an enemy of Christianity and suggesting it was Jews who caused his defeat for a Senate seat. He retracted them only after the bad press he received. I guess he figured not to negatively affect the bottom line. (Mel Gibson retracted his recent drunken comments to, but he’s not getting much forgiveness for what he said. As far as I know, Ford wasn’t drunk when he wrote his beliefs.) Ford was opposed to America’s entry into World War II and, in my opinion, only saw the “Nazis for what they were” AFTER he realized there would be money to be made building vehicles for the war effort. Especially since not accepting Gov. Contracts would have put him out of business. He stubbornly refused to deal with the growing influence of the labor unions and almost put the company out of business in the 1930s because of his management style and reluctance to create new models. His treatment of the unions, it can be argued, helped create the 80 year history of the “we versus them” attitude of labor and management that still exists more so in the auto industry than anywhere else.
So RamSport47, maybe YOU should learn your history. There’s no question Ford’s accomplishments were great on any scale. But the man himself was no saint and that was my only point. And roadside and the rest of you need to lighten up. Geesh…you take offense as if Ford was your father.
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