A Towering Victorian Status Symbol

"Ben Ensley, like many a newly-rich man before and after the 1860's, wasn't shy about what money could buy. His fabulous Michigan farm boasted barns big enough for 200 head of cattle, a grand many-gabled farm house, a smoke house resembling a small cathedral, a gingerbread brick privy with ornamental ceiling and Birdseye maple seats.

But towering above all this architectural splendor was the piece de resistance of the Ensley place - the windmill tower. A bracketed marvel of intricate symmetry with its gables and cornices delicately decorated with scrollwork and its peaks capped with beautifully turned finials." The trim of the tower was a dark wine red and it also had a ten foot wooden wheel." (by Barbara Schiller, 1977, "The Old - House Journal, pages 40 and 41."

Ensley Wind Tower in 1924

(Photo courtesy of the Ensley Historical Society)

Click on the thumbnails below to see more pictures of the Wind Tower

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