My husband did his training up there and was daydreaming about a teaching position at his favorite hospital, St John Providence. Is there any chance that we could find a reasonably priced farm within 30-40 minutes of there? We would also need a Catholic parish and school. I know Gross Pointe is the rich area, (too rich for us, I’m sure) but is there anything rural? Is Farmington too far?
Greetings. I’m assuming that St John Providence would be in the Rochester Hills area. You’d be driving distance to Oxford/Metamora (our horse country) there are other barns in the area depending on your discipline. I’ve been at Bit by Bit in Oakland Mi. Friends are at Rattlewood in Metamora. Plethora of barns in and around the area.
Rochester/Oakland MI is a beautiful area. Downtown Rochester has small town feel with cute homes and larger mini-mansions further north. Farmington is way the heck out and you’d need to navigate the freeways which are a nightmare in rush hours.
http://bitbybitequestriancenter.com/
http://www.rattlewoodfarms.com/
This is driving distance and more jumping based
http://www.springbrookec.com/index.htm
We’ve been in Troy (close suburb) for almost forty years).
Sending links to Rochester Catholic schools
http://smoth.org/education/catholic-schools/
Best of Luck to you. If you have any other questions, please dont hesitate to contact me.
Kind Regards
Judith
Thanks for the PM!
Belleville, Canton, Northville, and South Lyon are more rural communities from which you can commute to Detroit. “Rural” is relative, though. In SE Michigan you’re mostly looking at paddock turnout and feeding hay all year. Large acreages and true pasture are rare.
you can probably buy enough lots in Detroit to build your own farm nearly down town
Ha ha Alagirl! True. Except for the zoning. And probably no Catholic schools.
I’m thinking it may be a tall order to get within a 30 min drive to Detroit proper for anything farm like. Have you inquired at all with a good equine specilizing realtor? There are several good ones over that way. When I was moving back to MI recently, I was put in contact with a few. Unfortunately, they didn’t cover the W side of the state which is where I ended up.
all kidding aside, as I understand it from talking with a guy who lives in Detroit, the neighborhoods are really rough, with the exception of a very few.
While I do compliment DH for his motives, I don’t think I would want to move my family there.
My friend wanted to move away from there…badly!
Another consideration for the OP is that here in MI, it’s not uncommon for people to have an hour or more commute if they have a farm. BUT it’s not the same as an hour commute in say…DC where I just left. When I lived in MI previously, I had an hour commute for years and it was quite pleasant because with few exceptions, I was MOVING the whole time. It wasn’t stop and go gridlock. It was actually a great time to decompress, listen to a book on tape, etc etc.
I think that if you’re okay with an hour commute, you’d open a lot of options.
Thanks for the thoughts, guys. It’s been many years since my husband has been to Detroit. We are planning a short trip sometimes this year to check things out. It might just be like when I yearned to go back to northern Colorado. Once I saw how much it changed, I didn’t want to go back. We aren’t serious enough to talk to a realtor. My husband was born there and has some nostalgia, but his family’s land was north and rural, so that might be a better option, if he really wants to go back.
What kind of barn are you looking for? Some beautiful farms in Oxford. I boarded in Clinton Township (fiance was a med student at Wayne State) but definitely a paddock situation and not within 30 minutes of Detroit. Depends where you live, I guess.
If you’re willing to look further, look at Empire Farms (new construction) or Win-a-Gin.
Ann Arbor is not far from Detroit in is a VERY horsy area–both h/j and dressage. Also lots of health care opportunity the with the gigantic U of M medical complex there.
[QUOTE=Alagirl;8233747]
all kidding aside, as I understand it from talking with a guy who lives in Detroit, the neighborhoods are really rough, with the exception of a very few.
While I do compliment DH for his motives, I don’t think I would want to move my family there.
My friend wanted to move away from there…badly![/QUOTE]
Well there is Detroit proper, and then there are all the suburbs. Many people work in Detroit and commute from elsewhere, and as BuddyRoo says, commuting is nothing like it is in the big metropolitan areas.
My filly’s breeder is southwest of Detroit along Rt. 12, near the NASCAR track in Brooklyn. Her husband commutes to a job on the eastern side of the city. It’s about an hour and 15 minutes each way … I would not say he’s thrilled with the commute, but living in that area allows them to have a pretty nice spread with an older house, two barns, a tiny indoor, and pasture for the horses. She does feed hay year round as they don’t have enough land to grow enough pasture for the horses.
(One thing that floored me about the cost of land … her neighbor has a few acres up for sale, and the cost per acre is about 3% of the cost of a one acre lot where I live…)
I have made the “commute” at rush hour when I’ve visited my filly, and yes there was congestion in a few places, but not the stressful bumper to bumper traffic for miles one gets in Boston, Los Angeles, etc.
We would need to relocate our entire farm, including a small herd of Dexter cattle. I don’t really have a discipline anymore. We trail ride and I work my own cows. We would need to be rural enough to have a donkey and a bull without neighbors freaking out.
Thank you for all your help and suggestions. I am looking forward to seeing the area, even if my husband decides against moving there. I have never been to Michigan.
Oh God. If you’ve never been to MI, please don’t judge the whole state by what you see in Detroit. Please. There are so many lovely places.
In fact, we’ve recently relocated back to MI–on the W side in Grand Rapids and I just love it. I’ve lived all over the US and abroad and I can honestly say that I love it here.
If you guys are truly considering a move to MI, please consider GR because there are lots of options for a physician (I get the impression that’s your DH’s career?) and there are pretty good places to buy up some land on the outskirts too.
I don’t want to knock Detroit per se, but I would not like that to be someone’s first impression of this state. I am not from here btw so it’s not like I was born and indoctrinated into it. I’ve lived in a few different parts of MI though and Detroit would be not anywhere on my list of places to try to live close to if I didn’t HAVE to.
If you have enough time, a trip to Mackinaw Island is well worth the drive. It really is ruled by horses. 
[QUOTE=BuddyRoo;8234203]
Oh God. If you’ve never been to MI, please don’t judge the whole state by what you see in Detroit. Please. There are so many lovely places.
In fact, we’ve recently relocated back to MI–on the W side in Grand Rapids and I just love it. I’ve lived all over the US and abroad and I can honestly say that I love it here.
If you guys are truly considering a move to MI, please consider GR because there are lots of options for a physician (I get the impression that’s your DH’s career?) and there are pretty good places to buy up some land on the outskirts too.
I don’t want to knock Detroit per se, but I would not like that to be someone’s first impression of this state. I am not from here btw so it’s not like I was born and indoctrinated into it. I’ve lived in a few different parts of MI though and Detroit would be not anywhere on my list of places to try to live close to if I didn’t HAVE to.[/QUOTE]
On the other hand, if you do sporthorse stuff, the northern Metro suburb area is great. . .
[QUOTE=RatWrangler;8234210]
On the other hand, if you do sporthorse stuff, the northern Metro suburb area is great. . .[/QUOTE]
Yes. If you are boarding. But not so much if you need to buy a farm for your cattle too. I can’t even imagine where you’d do that. Can you? I was trying to think of options earlier, but if you’re not just boarding, I am at a loss for options near there.
I think the disconnect is that my husband was there before he knew anything about farms. What he pictures are open spaces that he saw here and there, or cheaper land. However, he is also well aware of the bad neighborhoods. He wants to see the areas of Detroit that he enjoyed (some have deteriorated, which we will skip). He is also thinking he might check out the areas closer to where his family is from. Either way, It will be a fun trip. I love his aunt and uncle so it will be nice to catch up with them. They live close to Mackinac. We will be doing a lot of driving during our visit. They are way up north.
[QUOTE=BuddyRoo;8234212]
Yes. If you are boarding. But not so much if you need to buy a farm for your cattle too. I can’t even imagine where you’d do that. Can you? I was trying to think of options earlier, but if you’re not just boarding, I am at a loss for options near there.[/QUOTE]
Actually I go to a show several times a year in Oxford, and I’ve seen pastures with small herds of cattle in several areas down 24. There are also cattle and horse farms right off I-69 all the way between Flint and Lansing. Not gigantic herds but a few dozen.
I know that’s not Detroit, but if you’re willing to stretch your search area to other large cities, there’s still a lot of rural spaces just outside the urban areas.
