Wayne County After Dark: From Poorhouse to Penthouse

In 1997, when things didn't seem quite as dire in Michigan as they are these days, I was invited along with a bunch of other faculty to attend a holiday party at the Kasteel Batavia, a dazzling mansion on the edge of Lake St. Clair in Grosse Pointe Park built in 1927. Originally it was called the R. W. Judson House, after the first owner, President of Continental Motors. It's Tudor style. Original architect: Wallace Frost. Interiors: 9,931 square feet.

(From "More Mergers," Time, 12/12/1927): The week brought news of an unusual number of important mergers and absorptions, and denials of mergers and absorptions. Denials often protect plans still forming. At least they indicate a trend in a particular phase of business. . . However President R. W. Judson of Continental Motors at once said: "We expect to maintain our position indefinitely as an independent manufacturer.").

The actual 1997 party was a little on the awkward side, a handful of wealthy people and a rogue's gallery of educators. We congregated mostly in the ballroom, which was a knockout. Coats went upstairs, past the real Van Gogh.

I always wondered why it was called the Kasteel Batavia, and only putting together this post did I figure it out. The owner (at least in 1997) was a hand doctor, obviously well-paid and in high demand, originally from Indonesia. Back in the early 1600s, the Dutch East Indies Company captured and sacked Jakarta, Indonesia, and renamed it Batavia; its main fortification was named the Kasteel Batavia. What this means or meant to the Indonesian doctor, I'm not sure, but at least the first two dots connect.

In 1997, the good doctor and his gracious wife (also from Indonesia, I'm pretty sure) had a slew of kids who'd lived in the Kasteel Batavia; they were all named after famous Western opera characters (Siegfried, etc.).

On the rather extensive grounds, there's a wind-damaged but still surviving Mission pear tree that may have been planted at the direction of King Louis XIV in the early 1700s. I read somewhere last year that this old French pear tree is being cloned because of its heartiness, and that the Kasteel Batavia was also the location of the Detroit area's first windmill.

Man, the more things change . . .

Except for the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House (and museum), I haven't been inside another mansion since. After 1997, all mansion parties for faculty ceased without further explanation. But at least that once, I saw things from the inside.

Today's Rune: Journey.