IT HAPPENS EVERY YEAR: Mother Nature shrugs off her snowy mantle, dials up her outdoor thermostat, purses her lips to blow soft breezes across Michigan and fresh green shoots poke through the earth. With all of that going on, thoughts naturally turn to enjoying the great outdoors.
Thankfully, Michigan is dotted with public and private gardens that make ideal spots for social and corporate events both intimate and large-scale. Here are a few venues to whet your appetite for gatherings en plein air.
At least three garden venues in Oakland County are courtesy of families that helped boost Detroit into prominence during the Industrial Revolution: Addison Oaks, which surrounds the Buhl estate; the Cranbrook Educational Community; and Meadow Brook Hall.
Staff at northeast Oakland County park Addison Oaks, which boasts 1,140 acres, two lakes and spring-fed ponds, work with event planners to pinpoint the perfect spot for tented events. Oak Management, a private company, is the exclusive food and beverage vendor, and can provide refreshments ranging from a picnic party to a multicourse meal of Indian cuisine. “We have also done small, intimate corporate planning events coupled with a camping/cabins (roughing it) aspect,” says Oak Management Manager Daniel Shaw.
Addison Oaks is also home to the English Tudor-style Buhl estate, the former summer lodgings of the Detroit manufacturing and real estate development family. Its main ballroom accommodates 350 and opens onto massive outdoor decks, where guests can view willows, a wisteria-covered arbor and formal flower gardens enclosed by a stuccoed wall that matches the Buhl mansion.
Founded by Detroit philanthropists George and Ellen Booth in 1904, Cranbrook’s 319-acre National Historic Landmark campus in Bloomfield Hills features the works of world-renowned architects and sculptors surrounded by lush gardens.
Not to be missed is the new sunken garden, where perennial beds flank four planting beds used to display annuals in a formal pattern. In 2013, the auxiliary planted 225 flats of begonias, ranging from white to red, in a diamond pattern.
Cranbrook offers four outdoor options: the grounds of the secluded Thornlea Mansion (built by one of the Booth children, who was an architect), which can be tented for up to 60 guests; the large lawns surrounding the art museum and the science institute; and the 250-seat Greek Theater, ensconced in a pine forest, where the Booths staged amateur plays. (Cranbrook House and Gardens is not available for private event rentals. Tours are available, however.) Cranbrook also has an approved list of caterers and photographers. Meadow Brook, in Rochester, is known for its Tudor-revival Meadow Brook Hall, but from May to October, a garden tent often rises within its site. The tent has chandeliers, French doors, heating/air conditioning and a dance floor. The 7,200-square-foot shelter holds up to 350 seated, but can accommodate as many as 600 for a strolling supper. Planners must use in-house catering.
Meadow Brook is the former home of Matilda Dodge Wilson, widow of one of the co-founders of the Dodge Brothers Motor Car Company. The lush acreage surrounding the mansion includes a knot garden with manicured hedges; a cottage-style, walled garden; and a terraced rock garden, among others.
Also in Oakland County, the Planterra Conservatory brings the outdoors inside its glass enclosure with Michigan’s largest indoor living wall. The wall of plants is 30 feet long and 14 feet high, and includes orchids, exotic ferns and succulents. The conservatory, with room for 200, offers reduced rates to 501(c)3 organizations.
Planterra also works well for planners that want to piggyback their events with other close-by sites. The conservatory is close to the Drake Sports Park, Shenandoah Country Club, Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital and the Berman Center for Performing Arts at the Jewish Community Center. So, for example, a political candidate could hold a general fundraiser at Shenandoah, with capacity for up to 1,200, and another, more intimate event for donors at Planterra.
Further west is the University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, both in Ann Arbor.
“[Our] outside, formal gardens include a bonsai garden, garden of Great Lakes native plants, perennial and herb gardens, children’s garden, and walking trails with woodlands, wetlands, ponds and a prairie,” says Joe Mooney, Matthaei’s marketing manager.
A terrace outside of the auditorium-with floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a sweeping view of the outdoors-has capacity for up to 100 standing guests. All food service and meetings are held indoors, and events, including cleanup, must end by 11 p.m.
Even further west is the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids. Events here, for up to 700 guests, start after 5 p.m., when the venue closes to the public. Gatherings are usually booked June through September, due to the climate, but the park will accommodate dates in April, May and October.
The park also contains a rentable 1930s-era family farm that includes a vegetable garden, apple orchard, farm animal sculptures, a 100-yearold barn, a working windmill and a farmhouse.
Complimentary admission to the surrounding 135-acre park is included with all rentals, and guests may opt for self-guided, walking tours of the English perennial garden or the new Japanese garden. Another option is to hop onto a tram for a narrated 30-minute tour.
Guided garden tours are also available at Dow Gardens, in Midland, and last from 45 minutes to two hours. Otherwise, non-wedding events take place indoors in Whiting Forest, with an open-beam ceiling and a stone fireplace.
Whiting Forest-the building that sits among the wooded forest of the same name-also offers tours of the woods, which feature plantings native to within a 50-mile radius, such as tamarack trees and lady-slipper wildflowers. It can accommodate up to 80 guests and has kitchen facilities. As at the Matthaei in Ann Arbor, there’s a curfew. The last guest and cleanup crew must be out and the doors locked by 10 p.m.
