President Gerald R. Ford, Jr. Boyhood Home, Presidential residence in Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States.
The President Gerald R. Ford, Jr. Boyhood Home is a single-family house in the East Hills neighborhood of Grand Rapids, Michigan, built in the Colonial Revival style. It has a covered front porch, double-hung windows, and weatherboard siding, all features common in American residential construction of the early 20th century.
Ford's family moved into this house in 1921 when Gerald Jr. was 8 years old, and they stayed until 1930, first renting and later buying the property. Those were the years when Ford went through school and grew into a young adult in this Grand Rapids neighborhood.
The house reflects how a middle-class family in 1920s Grand Rapids would have lived day to day, in a neighborhood where children walked to school and families spent evenings on the front porch. That sense of ordinary American domestic life is still visible in the way the street and the house look today.
The house sits on a residential street in Grand Rapids and is visible from the sidewalk, but interior access is not always available to visitors. It is a good idea to check in advance whether the house can be entered before making a special trip.
The garage behind the house served as a hangout for Ford and his friends during his teenage years, where they gathered to play cards away from adult supervision. This small detail sets this house apart from grander presidential sites, showing a decidedly ordinary side of Ford's early life.
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