Fair Lane is one of a select group of properties designated a National Historic Landmark. As such, it keeps company with the Alamo, Independence Hall, and the homes of most American Presidents. Fair Lane’s owner, Henry Ford, altered the American landscape and affected the life of virtually every American in the last century. One Estate item auctioned by Parke-Benet long ago was the original watercolor study for “Men of Progress” by Christian Schussele (1824-1879). The painting portrays 17 of America’s foremost “inventors and organizers,” including Cyrus McCormick, Charles Goodyear, Samuel F.B. Morse, and Elias Howe (maker of the sewing machine). If Schussele had lived into the 20th century, he would certainly have included Henry Ford.

A variety of tools brings history to life. Visits to sites such as battlefields or historic structures bring social history to life. Similarly, examples of such artifacts as textiles, wall coverings, furniture and fine arts ("decorative arts") inspire the sense of history of a place and era. The National Park Service has an impressive record of teaching the public about the past using both artifacts and sites. In Philadelphia, more than a million visitors tour Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and smaller sites like the Dolly Madison and Edgar Allen Poe houses each year. In a secular society like ours, visits to these sites have somewhat the character of religious pilgrimages. Places like Mount Vernon or the Betsy Ross House reinforce our collective myths, while others, like Biltmore and San Simeon, invoke awe for the Gilded Age.

Fair Lane provides insight into the surprising personalities of Clara and Henry Ford. Unlike most of their contemporaries, the Fords chose to build a large house—not a mansion—in the avant garde Prairie Style. They furnished it conservatively with American and European antiques, or good copies of them. They commissioned noted landscape designer Jens Jensen to design surrounding prairies and woodlands in keeping with the house, at a time when most wealthy Americans were creating classical vistas and structured outdoor “rooms."

Some of the most important rooms within the House contain many of their original furnishings and can be restored to the period of the Fords’ occupancy. As part of the Historic Preservation Master Plan, their restoration is recommended to tell a more complete story of Clara and Henry Ford’s life. These rooms include the Field Room, dining room, kitchen, library, sun porch, the master bedroom suite, and the Edison bedroom. Other Estate rooms, lacking their original furnishings, are best represented by recreating the original wall, floor, ceiling, window coverings, and lighting but furnishing them with only one or two representative pieces. This approach will enable their continued alternative use in a way that is complementary to the historically treated rooms.