Rediscovering Edsel Ford’s Haven Hill is Now Streaming on Amazon!
Our first feature-length film, “Rediscovering Edsel Ford’s Haven Hill,” is now available to stream live on Amazon.com. It’s currently free for Amazon Prime members, or $2.99 to rent or $9.99 to buy.
Premier Public Showing
The premier public showing of Rediscovering Edsel Ford’s Haven Hill will be four weeks from tonight, at 6pm, Wednesday, October 21 at the Village Branch of Cromaine Library in Hartland, Michigan. Following the film, there will be time for questions. DVD’s will also be available for sale.
This is a free showing, open to all, whether you live in Hartland or not. Preregistration is encouraged, but not required. You can register at the Cromaine Library’s web site.
Please note that, even if it says it’s full, you can still come. They just add more chairs.
Rediscovering Edsel Ford’s Haven Hill
Bet you thought we’d crawled into a cave somewhere and gone into hibernation, it’s been so long since we’ve posted anything. Nope. Not even close. We’ve just been working so hard on our latest project that we haven’t had much of a chance to post on here. Now it’s finally time to show it off!
In 1923, Edsel Ford began buying up land an hour northwest of Detroit in what would become his Haven Hill Estate. In the end, he’d own nearly four square miles of forest, farmland, lakes, and wetlands.
In 1946, a few years after his his death, his wife Eleanor sold the estate to the State of Michigan.
The major buildings remained in use, for a time. Eventually, even the remaining builders were abandoned to time and the elements. Between, fire, neglect, decay, and the passing decades, most of the estate was lost and forgotten.
In 2009, explorations began with a few friends and, in 2014, Exploration Guides, led by Darrin Fowler, committed to rediscovering and sharing the Haven Hill Estate with the world.
Granted exclusive access to every building and underground space on the estate, and having scoured the grounds looking for any trace of the past, they’ve discovered not only a lot about Edsel Ford’s Haven Hill, but a lot about what happened before and since, too.
Join Darrin and his team as they Rediscover Edsel Ford’s Haven Hill.
We have DVD’s on-hand today, but we’re still not quite set up to sell them on-line. Check back soon for that, and also some sneak peeks.
Myths & Legends at Haven Hill
A team of researchers from Exploration Guides today found proof that a widely held belief about Haven Hill is, in fact, wrong, and that two local legends, while they do each contain a grain of truth, don’t contain much more than that.
As “Rediscovering Edsel Ford’s Haven Hill” nears completion of filming, all the pieces are coming together for what is sure to be the most in-depth work on Edsel’s lost estate.
New finds at Haven Hill
I spent a couple years actively exploring Haven Hill with a couple friends. That project fell apart, but now I’m back and working on a video documentary of the site. Amazingly, we’re still finding new stuff! We found a new building foundation a few weeks ago and, after getting a bit more information up at the state archives earlier this week, today we found remains of the ski slopes set up for the Fords (and later added onto).
No release date for the documentary yet, but we are making slow, steady progress.
Ambitious
Saw this little guy (ok, big for a crayfish) trying to climb the Haven Hill Dam a couple weeks ago. He was almost up to the vertical part of the spillway when he lost his grip and fell back to the bottom, where we lost track of him. There’s still a bit of warm weather left to get outdoors and explore, and, of course, fall colors, so get outside and enjoy before everything’s covered in ice and snow (then go out and explore that, too, of course).
In other news, serious video work beginning soon on our first full-length video documentary. Stay tuned for more information as it develops.