university of michigan

Ford Family Makes Plans to Take Back Fair Lane Estate

Filed under: Estates

Now that the Ford family doesn't need to spend sleepness nights fretting over the very existence of its namesake firm, it can dedicate its time to other worrisome matters – like the condition of Fair Lane estate. The 56-room, 31,000-square-foot home finished in 1913 and part of the National Register, has been looked after by the University of Michigan at Dearborn since the 1950s.

A public institution, as should be well known by now, has to be an option of last resort when it comes to taking care of a massive old mansion. UM Dearborn says that Fair Lane needs $12 million in repairs, and that amount forced a choice between doing the best it could for students or doing the best it could for the house.

Hence, oversight of the estate will move from the university to the Ford family in July of next year. At that point the estate will close for a year for repairs. When it reopens it will not only be new again, it will tell a "more comprehensive" familial tale tied into the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

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Tags: fair lane estate, ford, michigan, university of michigan, university of michigan dearborn

Bo Merlot Celebrates A Coaching Legend

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

Mike Ditka isn't the only coach with a wine label. Legendary University of Michigan coach the late Bo Schembechler is now the namesake of a 2005 California merlot. According to the Ann Arbor News, the Bo Merlot will be unveiled in the Ann Arbor area in the last week of August which marks University of Michigan's home football opener against Utah.

The wine is being distributed by Studer imports, a wine company founded by Marlena Studer, She defends her choice to use a California winery in Monterey to source the wine rather than a Michigan winery by saying that California symbolizes the Rose Bowl, where Schembechler tried to get this team to each year. The price of the wine is $19.69 which references 969, the year Schembechler arrived on campus. Two dollars from each sale goes to the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center, which treated Schembechler when he was ill. He died of heart failure on Nov. 17, 2006. The wine will be sold in local stores in the Ann Arbor area.

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Tags: bo merlot, bo schembechler, BoMerlot, BoSchembechler, university of michigan, wine