Axford-Coffin Farm

Founded as a farm by John Axford in the 1830s and 40s and reconstituted as a country retreat by Detroit businessman and U.S. Congressman Howard A. Coffin beginning in 1939, Cranberry Lake Farm reflects the establishment of country retreats by prosperous Detroiters in the countryside of Oakland County and, more particularly, Oakland County's Oakland Township and vicinity, in the early twentieth century when the automobile and improving roads made these areas more readily accessible. In this rapidly developing suburban area of Oakland County Cranberry Lake Farm provides an increasingly rare example of one kind of retreat that made use of old farm places. The house and other surviving buildings and landscaping provide an example of how former farm places were adapted to country estate or retreat uses while retaining elements of their former agricultural character.

Cranberry Lake Farm comprises a farmstead of 16.659 acres on the south boundary line of a 191-acre parcel of land, which is bordered by Predmore Road to the south, Romeo Road to the north, and privately owned parcels to the east and west in Oakland Township, Oakland County, Michigan. This farmstead includes a main dwelling; a caretaker house; several agricultural outbuildings including sheds, a silo, and barn foundation; country estate features including a carriage house, greenhouse, springhouse, pond with pump house, flagpole remnant, and outdoor oven/fireplace; and natural elements including an apple orchard, mature trees, ornamental plantings, and grassy fields within the 16.659 acres.