That building was a masterpiece. What an incredible building that could have been re-purposed as a museum, or school or art center. What a tragedy to lose this.
This house is a Detroit legend. To see it from the lake was awe inspiring even to a little boy (which I was then). Such a waste - especially when you see what replaced it. Great job Ken.
@@funguykel it is now Rose Terrace St. next to the Grosse Pointe War Memorial. A couple dozen $750k-1.2m homes Also the street right next to it is Dodge Pl. so I assume that was also the property
I came of age in Grosse Pointe. Our scout troop (96) was in the church next door to Rose Terrace. What a shame that it was such a white elephant and torn down. A gated community now occupies the grounds. The cast iron gates and iron fencing, I think, still remain. I took a rusted out piece of the fencing that had fallen out. It is shaped like a Fleur-de Lis.
Horace Elgin Dodge and John Francis Dodge owned the most modern and sophisticated machine shop in Detroit. They manufactured most of the the parts for the Ford Model T and where a major stockholder. They started out make steam engines and many for boats. Horace had a passion for boats and ships and designed and built all his own engines. His brother John was the the business end of Dodge Brothers but Horace was the man who engineered the cars and the plant and all the machines that were in it. The man was no mere mechanic he was an engineering genius and never afraid to get his hands dirty on the factory floor.
I grew up in the Grosse Pointes and still live in the area and am VERRRY familiar with this once MAGNIFICENT, unbelievably demolished home. I'm a Professional Photographer who's been specializing in homes for sale and to an extent, luxury & million dollar plus ones in the area (& lots of historic ones too) and I'm also on the board on the Grosse Pointe Historical Society. At the risk of sounding egotistical I'm an expert, amateur historian on the house and so many other equally fantastic mansions that've been torn down in the Grosse Pointes. My Aunt was also a Grosse Pointe fixture and made all the floral arrangements for the "Last Night of Rose Terrace" party in '76 before it was torn down. I remember being 14 years old and SICKENED to my core that it was being demolished while I tried to peer down the long driveway as we drove by. The houses that were built on the property are utter affronts to any true quality, even in the late 1970's and have only aged even worse. #ETERNALLYDEPRESSING!
I remember that. I grew up in the Shores. I remember standing on the driveway and crying. I totally agree with you about what was built there. Graduate of GPNHS 1977. My grandmother GPHS 192?.🤷🏼♀️ I also remember the fabulous home with the raised side double staircase, that was near the then, Bon Secours Hospital ~ that was leveled a few years later. Another heartbreaking loss.
Are the houses that replaced it bad because they were meant to be luxury and just look terrible? Or are they bad because they are lower income housing?
@@AshLilburne OH, definitely NOT lower income! You’re unfamiliar with the Grosse Pointes and they are still one of the best communities in the all the state/ Midwest to live in! Still full of millionaires and billionaires but 95% of the truly huge, original historic 20,000 ft.² plus mansions & estates have been torn down & subdivided decades ago. I mean that they were built in the late 70s and early 80s and they are dated beyond description and made out of drywall and crap repeat crap. but they still sell between the seven hundred and fifty to 1.3 million dollar range and the ones on the lake sell for two and three million. But 95% of them are DREK compared to Rose Terrace.
@@greeneyedwarlock882 Ahh ok thank you for the info! Yeah I was going to say in my original post thatbeing from Australia, I had no idea. But thought to myself - Nah no one needs to know that! Haha
Most people don't know this but it was her second husband Hugh Dillman who showed her Miramar in Newport and convinced her to build the second house. Dillman was the one 100% instrumental when it came to constructing this house. He told the architects where to put the fire places, he picked out the furniture, where to position everything, it was all Dillman's doing. When the contents were moved out in 1971, everything was still in place where Dillman placed the pieces of furniture and artwork. He had a sense of style and decoration. Look up Sandy Loam Farm in Florida, Dillman owned and developed it.
I was in this house as a small child in the mid-late 60’s at an event that Mrs. Dodge attended and talked to me. Unfortunately I was too young to remember but my mother and aunt filled me in on the conversation. But I distinctly remember the day they started tearing it down, they were both on the phone crying.
So many wedding venues are being torn down and turned in apartment complexes! They build so many buildings, on top of each other, people are living like sardines, sharing everything with strangers! I don't even know how they afford the rents, a mortgage is less than renting!
@@rhuephus This house was built in the style of centuries old estate properties, that are still standing and the inhabitants are generations of family members! It's reminiscent of the beautiful, old villas dotting the Italian countryside! This is far from ugly, it's architectural magnificence!
Ken, thanks for the great series on palaces and great houses... that were eventually demolished. Unfortunately, this is starting to be depressing. Maybe you can spice it up with an episode of a house that is still around.
I agree, it would be nice if they had better titles such as "The lost house of (insert name here)" so we don't get our hopes up. Or "The treasure house or palace of (insert name)" to refer to something which is STILL here in some sense. I know enough to know the US has no regard for any form of historical preservation. It's sickening and this further makes me hate our country.
@@ernshaw78 I’ve spent 35+ years as a restoration architect. You’re wrong. Americans are no less devoted to architectural history than the Brits or the French.
I remember Rose Terrace from my childhood. It was just down Lakeshore from my grandparents family home. It was heartbreaking to watch it be dissembled in my High School years. My parents bought some pieces from the auction.
I went to the auction and was just more interested in looking at all the magnificent rooms in the house. The kitchen was two stories. The view of Lake St. Clair is beautiful there. As a side note, many antique pieces were brought in for the auction and were not original to the home. Also Mrs. Dodge donated the precious French antique pieces from her music room to the Detroit Institute of Arts. It's a shame the mansion was demolished. It was so beautiful inside and out.
@@DJ-vh4fq Yes, it was quite magnificent. Thanks for your input on the pieces that were also added to the auction. I am aware. The pieces purchased were important enough, that they were in (one of) the leather bound catalogues of the houses contents. My parents outbid the DIA for the catalog (to prove provenance). Hopefully one day they will be added back to the collection Mrs Dodge left to the DIA.
@@DJ-vh4fq Was there any historic preservation group who could have rescued it? If it was such a fine architectural example as depicted here, it would seem as if some effort might have been made.
@@karenryder6317 Rose Terrace was a truly magnificent home. If you look up Whitemarsh Hall and Lynewood Hall you get an idea of the detail Horace Trumbauer, the architect,, put into designing for his clients. Despite this importance, if my memory serves me right, Grosse Pointe officials just weren't interested in preserving it and they were able to realize a huge tax benefit by replacing the property with many new large homes which remain today. "Mc Mansions". Such a loss to Detroit history.
Wow. Rose Terrace was a glorious place but simply too much of a good thing. So much there that was superlative and beautiful yet, considering how long the house could have lasted, was enjoyed by so few for so short a time and that time was even shorter what with Mrs. Dodge becoming a recluse. How sad that Mrs. Dodge became a recluse not just in her house but in only part of her house. I like to think that if I had such a house and could afford living in it that I would put it to good use a place of hospitality to many people and groups, having the house as something of a community center/place for visitors/temporary housing for those in need along with being a private home.
When it was put up for sale the Detroit yacht club offered to buy the house for the asking price and wanted to use it for special functions and events. The grosse pointe farms city council rejected that proposal and wouldn't rezone it for that purpose and stated the neighborhood is to only be residential.
While Horace Trumbauer was willing to hire him, all of his work was attributed to either the firm or Trumbauer himself as no one of the era would work with a black architect. This was carried to the extreme when he designed the quadrangle for Duke University, but couldn't see it as at that time no blacks were allowed on the campus unless they were maintenance or kitchen staff.
@@LJB103Which was pretty much the situation for any other architect. For example, while Stanford white receives most of the credit, it’s actually his designers who do most of the work. White mostly did client relations and design approval
@@annonymously331 This was a different case. Julian Abele had all of the abilities to be a first rate architect, but because he was African-American no one at that time would have hired him (except for Trumbauer). He still had to stay in the background. Had he been white, the firm would probably have been Trumbauer and Abele. Stanford White also had both McKim and Mead as partners.
@@LJB103 Actually, while Julian abele was talented, during the first few years, Abele actually learned from Trumbauer rather than the other way round. And my point still stands about White and his firm: It was actually less well known designers who did most of the heavy lifting
Actually there is something left over from Rose Terrace. The Mansion was at Lakeshore and Fisher in Grosse Pointe Farms, some of the estates iron fence and the service gate still stand there, and two stone columns from the entrance with a plaque reading "Rose Terrace" remain.
So many of the mansions end up being demolished in your videos; are there some with happier endings? Thank you for making these videos and preserving their legacies.
Thank you for this history as well as wonderful architectural history! She was the epitome of a silly, superficial woman. The tragedy here is not only that something so grand and elegant was destroyed but that she was so wasteful and oblivious to the plight of other humans; which seems to be a disease all elites share! I guess no matter how humble ones beginnings may be, once they get their hands on money all sensibility escapes them! What I don't understand though is how Dodge Co, a giant corporation in the auto industry, wasn't able to supply the family with the funds necessary for the upkeep of the home.
@@North49191 If she had no stock in the company, what did she live on? She would definitely need a lot of money to keep up her lifestyle and as she aged, the upkeep and management of that house.
Dude you're channel is so great, I like how you take the time and colorize the rooms so that we get a more realistic picture of how they looked. I've only been a subscriber for about a month, but I just want to wish you the best of luck 👍🏿
Many thanks for this. I'd heard of Anna Dodge, but this really did an excellent job of filling in the blanks! The scenario is weird - an elderly woman decides to build a 1910 beaux-arts palace in the middle of the Great Depression. And it only lasted forty years. The couple @ 0.50 are Anna's son Horace Dodge, Jr., and, (probably) one of his five wives, circa 1940.
I'd also like to add that the house shown @ 4:47 is not Rose Terrace but Miramar, the Widener residence in Newport, RI (also designed by Trumbauer) which was the model for Rose Terrace.
Wonderful commentary, but also utterly heartbreaking. All these gorgeous edifices and people with no vision or respect for craftmanship just tear them down. Tragic.
You did a great job with this video again. Here on youtube are two films made in Rose Terrasse days before it's demolition. Including a narrator. It's phantastic footage but kind of heartbreaking to watch.
For some reason, this story bothered me more than the rest. Perhaps it was that during the Depression here in the U.S., this woman hired only workers from Europe, and spent an obscene amount of money buying things for herself while so many people starved and lived in poverty. Having been poor herself (and I'm sure she owned a radio), she doesn't come off in a very good light, though I did see a comment below regarding her second husband, the lucky real estate agent. Regardless, your stories are interesting, Ken, and yes, you sound great!
So many super wealthy US industrialists and their heirs squandered their fortunes on hedonistic pursuits. It's a real shame and I'm not the least bit sad when I hear that they died poor or alone. Money cannot and rarely does not buy happiness.
Wow what a amazing video. Thank you so much for all the research that goes into this videos I absolutely love all the back stories. My favorite new channel ❤️🙌🏻❤️
Ken, all of your videos are fascinating and educational. Do you know what happened to the rest of her fortune ? If her children couldn't afford to keep the mansion they didn't seem to have inherited all of her money.
@@ginamaria2579 🤯🙄. “Curious about her diet”?? You’re serious?? Of course she had Gourmet Chefs all her adult life….she was a multi millionaire/billionaire and those are not her children. They’re her grandchildren. She outlived her son and daughter by decades.
Another great visit to a magnificent estate unfortunately the victim of the wrecking ball. These gems 💎 are symbols of a life style unfortunately never to be equalled. Detail and craftsmanship cannot be matched today. So interesting that she became a virtual recluse, much like Barbara Hutton in her final years. AND, the Dodge mausoleum appears to be exactly the same as the Woolworth mausoleum.
Thank you for this video. It's too much to think of the waste of handcrafted ornamentation which flowed through this huge palace to be lost when it was demolished.
Born in low circumstances, progressed to Two Billion in todays dollars. Became reclusive. Her grandchildren inherited the house but were unable to even sell the mansion. House torn down. My goodness what a downer.
If I'm not mistaken, the first house she had on the lake is still there. Several years ago a developer built a development called "Dodge Place" on the property of the first house. The original house owned by Dodge was sold to R&B singer, Anita Baker. To the best of my knowledge, Anita and her husband still live there.
Thank you! So often the same story: overly extravagant and wasteful construction (tearing it down to rebuild it larger) tremendous upkeep, heirs forced to sell, home later demolished. It happened over and over and over.
Palazzos and country estates all over southern Italy look so much like this. I wonder if something they had seen on a escapade there would’ve inspired them to build their home in such a style?
Beautiful again. I live in Palm Beach County and cannot locate anything about Playa Riente. Please do that next. The Flagler Museum formerly Whitehall Mansion is spectacular as well as Vizcaya and of course Mar-A-Lago. The only thing I found on Playa Riente was that Palm Beach refused to allow it to become a school or museum and the structure was consequently demolished in the 50s. What a tragedy. Also interesting para-normal several Internet personalities have read on Mar-A-Lago that it was built on energetic lay lines. I believe Gene Decode, Tarot By Janine or Linda Paris. They claim the good guys and bad guys fought over that property and it is now or will be used as a Southern White House in the future.
Trump bought it for cheap but then wanted to subdivide it and sell condos on the property because he couldn't afford to maintain it. The Town of Palm Beach wouldn't let him riun the historic property so he turned it into a resort in "club form". Most of the mansion is used by the many members, including the living and dining rooms, the pool and beach. The Trumps live in an apartment upstairs. It can't be a "Southern White House" (which is what Mrs. Post wanted for it) or even any kind of "house" because it is a public space with strangers roaming and using all of the facilities.
WOW!!! Rose Terrace was ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!! Unfortunately, back than when the house was put up for sale, there wasn’t that many billionaires like there are today. That would be one beautiful home with contents and grounds that could’ve been willed to the state or city for public enjoyment.
true but heating, other utilities, repairs and upkeep is very pricey. But it could have been used for a trade school of some kind maybe.... Something to pay for the cost of maintaining it.
@@PK-bh1ww GP Farms would never have allowed a trade school there, they wanted the property to remain single family residential. It was to much house for a single family to maintain, even people with the money to afford it did not want that large of a home. Perhaps it could have been divided into condos.
CORRECTION......the house shown @ 4:46 is not, repeat NOT Rose Terrace. It is house that still stands in Newport Rhode Island called "Miramar" which was built long before Rose Terrace. It was also designed by Trumbauer. Dodge herself wanted her house to be a MUCH bigger, more lavish and grandiose (i.e. OVERDONE) copy of it. And the runner on the grand staircase was not red, it was deep, sapphire blue.
The property tax in 1970 was unaffordable. That alone made the heirs not afford it. Also inheritance tax , none of which is covered in this video. shame on the government
@@karenryder6317 It's always easy to blame "the Government". People want everything for free from the Government but don't want to pay a dime of taxes. Huuman nature. What town or city would take on a white elephant like this at taxpayers' expense? What Mayor wants to announce "We cut back on the police and fire departments so we could pay the heating bill on this sumptuous mansion."
Sorry, but there is an error about how much Anna inherited. When John and his brother Horace both died in 1920, Dodge Motors was sold for $146 million: Anna got 1/2 and John's widow Matilda (builder of Meadowbrook Hall - open to the public and well worth a tour) got 1/2. The photo showning "Horace and Anna's" wedding is actually of Horace, Jr and one of his 5 wives. Other than these 2 small missteps a very good video overall. Like French Baron James de Rothschild's dictate for Frerriers: Build me a Mentmore (Towers - A British Rothschild mansion), only bigger. Anna's to Trumbauer was "Build me a Miramar (Trumbauer's summer cottage for the Wideners in Newport - still standing and still privately owned - not by the Wideners), only bigger. If you look they are almost identical except for scale. Delphine Dodge's (Anna's daughter) 1st husband was Jimmy Cromwell whose mother Eva married Ned Stotesbury (who built Whitemarsh Hall for her). Jimmy dumped Delphine when lots more money came along in the person of Doris Duke. Actually there is a lot of Rose Terrace around in a mansion that was featured on one of those "open house" shows a number of years ago on HGTV. Large parts of the interior were installed in the new home in Arizona.
@@DJ-vh4fq Sorry, but the listing I just sent seems to be for a horse ranch in an area called Rose Terrace although it did reference the Dodge estate. The HGTV show was at least 10 - 15 years ago, and was about touring estates up for sale all over the country.
Like so many robber barons at the turn of the century, they built huge mansions to impress, but most went bankrupt at the stock market crash of 1929. Then there weren't enough multi-millionaires with money to buy and maintain those white elephant buildings and they were torn down for redevelopment. An interesting book about huge mansions going to waste is "The Twilight of Splendor" by James T. Mahler.
I would love to read that book. I admire the architectural beauty of historical mansions and their history. It just breaks my heart when I find out about the destruction of these irreplaceable buildings. I understand they were too expensive to maintain but nevertheless, so much work and money spent only to end up with the wrecking ball. How sad. Thank you for sharing.
@@Dina52328 Philadelphia has two such mansions. Whitemarsh Hall in Wyndmoor Pennsylvania built for E Stotesbury. He lost it all after the crash of 1929. The house was torn down except for the four columns of the entrance and some garden structures and replaced with an upscale neighborhood. Lynnewood Hall built for P Widener still stands in Elkins Park Pennsylvania but is deteriorating with no buyers to repair it for the estimated cost of $50 million. You can see them by Googling them.
This is a great channel Ken, this one, and Recollection Road have quickly become favorites of mine. Good luck, I think your channel is going to be a big success
What I understood at the time is that Grosse Pointe refused to rezone the mansion for any other use, thus contributing to its demise, yet the mansion next door was rezoned as the Grosse Pointe War Memorial and was spared a similar fate.
@@DJ-vh4fq Wow That is a Shame, Whitehall in Palm Beach is a Museum today, but was a Hotel for a while after Henry and Mary Flagler lived there, what a tremendous lose that Grosse Pointe does not have this home today. Florida has a few Great home museums, Vizcaya and Ca' d'Zan. I do like Grosse Pointe and Greater Detroit very much.
@@hewitc My degree is in Hotel and Restaurant Management from Michigan State and hotels, like restaurants are expensive to run. I think it can be done, but it's a balancing act. The city probably wouldn't endorse adding more structures on the site, so you would have to work on dividing up rooms within what's there without compromising the interiors too much. Perhaps a bed and breakfast style establishment and upscale restaurants and catering could have been done. There's a historic mansion called The Whitney in Detroit that's been very successful for years. It's converted to a restaurant and is absolutely beautiful throughout. It's online if anyone wants to look. Rose Terrace would have made a beautiful hotel/restaurant establishment. The waterfront setting is wonderful! I think there would have been enough business and the room rates would probably have been high enough to turn a profit. The irreplaceable skill of the workmen is what saddens me. When I think of how hundreds of artisans put their heart into creating lasting art in building these homes all over the country and people just demolish their work without respect for their creation.
A sad story. kind of a wasted life she had. And who could possibly have known in the 70's that great houses like that might have another life besides a private home. Sad too for the family to have had to demolish it and break up the land... like so many in Britain and Europe.
If you were at a wedding several years ago~ it might have been the home of her dear friend,(whose name escapes me). That grand home became the Grosse Pointe War Memorial, gifted to the city for public use. Rose Terrace was completely leveled by mid 1976… 😉🤷🏼♀️ It was never used for any public functions. Possibly the Edsel Ford Estate down at the other end in GP Shores. This home does do weddings, has for years. As does the Dodge Estate and Home in Rochester Michigan that became Oakland University- Meadowbrook Hall
The biggest of the Michigan mansions is Meadowbrook Hall. It was built by Anna's sister in law and still stands today as a museum. I think you should do a video about that also
MeadowBrook was originally planned to be built on Lakeshore Drive in Grosse Pointe Farms but the project was halted upon his death… The home was dismantled and most of it was later used to construct MeadowBrook
Beautiful mansion. Unfortunate that someone with such humble upbringings lost her mind and spent like crazy though. I get interested in something, I research and educate myself. She remained happily ignorant and got swindled. Very sad.
As to the wine cellar. The Volstead act exempted any alcohol product in private possession prior to the effective date of the act. Effectively the wealthy as well as their clubs were insulated from its effects
I used to walk past her long drive on the way to school. I'll not forget seeing the wreath on the front door at the end of that long treed lane at Christmas.
