Originally on 150-acres. Ray Dahlinger was Henry Ford's chauffeur, confidante, auto tester, and mechanic. Evangeline Cote was Henry's mistress, and to keep her close by, Henry had her marry Ray and then proceeded to buy them an estate adjacent to his property. Ford's generosity culminated in a gift of 150 acres situated just downriver from his own home on the River Rouge. This became the site for the Dahlinger estate in the late 1920s, a palatial property whose worth obviously surpassed the financial resources of its occupants. The Tudor-style main house had nine fireplaces, eight bathrooms, servants' quarters, and a refrigerated fur-storage vault. It was surrounded by a gatehouse, several barns, a blacksmith shop, a lake and skating house, quarter-mile and half-mile racetracks, a gardeners' house, a greenhouse, a boathouse, and a large garage. Henry had a hidden passageway built into its staircase that went directly into Evangeline's bedroom. Henry would ride his bike down the road to the Dahlinger Estate to visit often or take his electric boat down the Rouge River that ran along the estate. They had a love child named John Dahlinger who later wrote a book about his father Henry Ford and ran a nightclub in Detroit up to the time of his death in the 70's. The Ford family denies that John was Henry's illegitimate son. There also once was a harness horse racing track on the property as Evangeline was a first rate harness racer and was said to carry a gun and first rate target shooter.
