From working girl to mistress of a 110-room mansion of her own choosing,
the tale of Canadian-born Matilda Rausch reads like a Cinderella story.
The daughter of George and Margaret Rausch, who ran the Dry Dock Saloon in
downtown Detroit and the boarding house next to it, Matilda was a secretary
for Dodge Brothers when she caught the eye of John Dodge, her 38-year-old,
pot-bellied, beer-swilling boss, a former machinist well on his way to
amassing one of America’s biggest automotive fortunes.
As a young man he had suffered from tuberculosis, the disease that killed
his seamstress wife, Ivy, in 1901, leaving him with three young children and a
business to run. Almost immediately he secretly married a woman named Isabelle
Smith, acknowledging her only as his “housekeeper” for the next five years.
Then, after persuading Isabelle to divorce him, John wed 24-year-old Matilda,
who on that chilly December afternoon in 1907 became not only his wife, but
also an American citizen, chatelaine of a $250,000, three-story brick home on
Boston Boulevard in Detroit and stepmother to Winifred, 14; Isabel, 12, and
unruly John Duval Dodge, 9.
The children were not pleased.
A business college graduate, savvy Matilda had added homemaking skills and
etiquette to her list of accomplishments while playing the dating game with
John. But although the couple joined Detroit’s nouveau riche society, she soon
realized her true interests were in church, Salvation Army and civic work.
Practical, organized and aggressive, she managed her large household of
children, servants and assorted live-in relatives with ease and efficiency.
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Shortly after their marriage, John paid $50,000 for 320 acres of rolling
farmland in Rochester, 32 miles north of Detroit, the first of nine properties
that would eventually make up the 1,400-acre Meadow Brook Farm. He renovated
and enlarged the old farmhouse, built a golf course, clubhouse and swimming
pool, and installed Matilda’s parents as caretakers of the country getaway,
where family and friends often gathered for rest and recreation.
Daughter Frances was born in 1914, but it was the birth of their son,
Daniel, in 1917, that spurred John to buy property on the shores of Lake St.
Clair in tony Grosse Pointe and plan one of the world’s most palatial homes.
The 110-room, 24-bath, Tudor-style house was to include a ballroom and a
6,000-square-foot servants’ wing. A swimming pool and a greenhouse would grace
the site, and a new, specially commissioned 104-foot yacht would be moored at
the Dodges’ private dock.
The palace with the $4 million price tag was well under way by the time
John and Matilda welcomed third child Anna Margaret, but they were never to
live there. While attending the National Automobile Show in New York in early
January 1920, John died of influenza, leaving his wife with six children, a
$1.5 million shell of a mansion and a fortune beyond belief.
Learning the terms of his will, the children from his first marriage were
even less pleased than they had been 13 years earlier. He left his property,
plus a share of a $40 million trust fund, to Matilda.
John Duval Dodge, disinherited when he married at 19, stepped up for a
handout, eventually settling for $1.6 million. When legal wrangling finally
ended in 1922, Matilda packed her bags, and with her three children, a nanny
and a nurse in tow, took off for Europe.
Home again a year later, she moved from Boston Boulevard to a place in
Grosse Pointe and put a permanent halt on her late husband’s dream house.
Matilda held the purse strings now, and she could order whatever kind of house
she wanted, and put it wherever she wanted, without interference from anyone.
After marrying lumber broker Alfred Wilson in 1925 and moving back to the
Meadow Brook farmhouse, she settled on building a 110-room, 80,000-square-foot
Tudor-style dwelling there instead. She commissioned the Detroit architectural
firm of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls to base the design for Meadow Brook Hall on
ideas she and Alfred had gleaned viewing manors and castles during their
honeymoon year in England. Decorator Wallace Newton was assigned the task of
finding suitable furnishings, which eventually included Tiffany art glass,
Stickley furniture, paintings by Gainsborough, van Dyck, Rousseau and
Reynolds, Sevres and Meissen porcelain, and Rookwood pottery.
The $4 million project began in 1926. On Nov. 19, 1929, the Wilsons hosted
a housewarming for 850 guests.
Their timing was terrible.
The stock market crash less than a month earlier and subsequent bank
closings brought extravagant living to a screeching halt. To economize,
Matilda and Alfred again moved to the farmhouse, closing their magnificent
mansion to everything but social and fund-raising activities until 1937, when
they returned to Meadow Brook Hall with Richard and Barbara, children they
adopted in 1930.
World War II marked other changes. The Wilsons closed the west wing of the
house to conserve fuel, cut the number of servants and razed the unfinished
structure in Grosse Pointe that had been John Dodge’s domestic dream.
After the war they built Miramonte, a winter home in Scottsdale, Ariz., and
in 1952, with taxes up, trimmed livestock and staff at Meadow Brook Hall and
escaped to a new, contemporary-style abode — Sunset Terrace — nearby.
The Wilsons donated Meadow Brook Farm, its buildings and $2 million to
Michigan State University in early January 1957, with the proviso they be
allowed to inhabit the houses until death. The property is now state-supported
Oakland University.
After Alfred died in April 1962, Matilda moved once more, this time from
Sunset Terrace, which she had come to hate, back to her mansion, where she
lived until her death at 83 in 1967, while on a horse-farm tour in Belgium.
Twice-widowed, she had survived the measles-related death of her 4-year-old
daughter, Anna Margaret; the drowning of her 21-year-old son, Dan; the
scandalous divorce of her stepdaughter Winifred; her daughter Frances’
divorce; deaths of two stepchildren; a 30-year estrangement from her only
sister; construction of three houses; numerous household moves; thousands of
committee meetings; and assorted legal battles over money, some of which
continued after her death. She left an estate of $16.1 million.
Rags to riches.
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Meadow Brook Hall offers tours at 1:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 1:30 and 3:30
p.m. Sunday (additional tours during July and August: 10:30 a.m., noon, 3 p.m.
Monday-Saturday; closed July 30-Aug. 3, Thanksgiving, Dec. 23-Jan. 2). Time: 1
1/2 to 2 hours. Admission: $8, $4 ages 5-12, free ages 4 and under.
Accessibility: Barrier-free and wheelchair accessible; for sign-language tour
interpretation, phone 248-370-3140. Miles from downtown Chicago: 298. Address:
Oakland University, University Drive, Rochester, Mich. Phone: 248-370-3140.