Exhibits

Programs

Multi-Media

 

Hours of Operation

Friday and Saturday 1:00pm-4:00pm

or by appointment

 

 

 

Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farm

1005 Van Hoosen Road Rochester Hills, MI 248.656.4663

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City of Rochester Hills

 

City of

Exhibits

Lost Rochester

On Display through December

 

The Greater Rochester Community has certainly changed over the past 180 years.  What happened to all of the mills, schoolhouses, and original buildings on Main Street?  How did fires and urban renewal reshape our community?  Our new exhibit is Lost Rochester and draws upon the Museum’s extensive archival collections of newspapers, artifacts, and photographs that feature the businesses and buildings that were once a part of the Rochester community, but are now gone.   

 

Come explore the Parke-Davis Barns, the St. James Hotel, Woodward School, Chapman Pond and beyond!

 

 

The Rochester Home Town Christmas Parade
Celebrates Six Decades of Christmas Joy

November 25 - December 30

 

The exhibit features news articles, photographs, and memorabilia that have sustained one of the largest events in our community for the past sixty years.  

 

Santa and Mrs. Claus visit the Museum on Saturday, December 3 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Timed tickets are available and all guests can enjoy a hayride, fresh baked cookies and Holiday activities.  

 

In addition, the Museum will display 35 years of White House Christmas cards as well as cards from various world leaders on loan from former Congressman William Broomfield.  The Museum will also display old ice skates, a sleigh, and various winter related artifacts.  In addition, the 1840 Van Hoosen Farmhouse and 1850 Red House will be decorated for the holidays.  

 

 

 

Our Lively Town

Permanent Exhibit inside the 1927 Dairy Barn

A look at the fascinating history of the Rochester/Rochester Hills community–the oldest community in Oakland County–utilizing hundreds of archival photographs, artifacts, maps, newspapers, and more.  In addition, you can enjoy a model train layout and interurban track as it travels through a model replica of downtown Rochester, and watch our 8-minute orientation video.  The log cabin room allows you to travel back to the early days of our community to look at the flora and fauna that greeted our first settlers.

The Museum store contains unique publications about our community as well as items made by community members and numerous keepsake items.

During normal open hours on Fridays and Saturdays, you can enjoy a guided tour through the 1840 Van Hoosen Farmhouse–at 1:30 and 3:00 p.m.–and view the possessions of five generations of the Taylor-Van Hoosen families.  At 2:30 p.m., you can tour the 1850 Red House, a small tenant farmhouse owned by the Van Hoosen Family and rented to their employees on their farm.  The house is furnished in the 1850 time period and even the surrounding landscape harkens back to a time before lawnmowers and manicured gardens.

Surrounding the Museum buildings are 16 acres of beautiful gardens and grounds bordered by Stoney Creek including The Children's Garden.  Self guided tours of the grounds can reveal turkey, coyote, fox, beaver, deer, blue birds, orioles, and more.  Feel free to wade into Stoney Creek on a warm day and feel the cool waters that attracted our first settlers.

Within a short walk, you can enjoy Stoney Creek Cemetery and meet the soldiers,scholars, and pioneers from this early settlement.  A tour map of the cemetery is available for purchase in the Museum store.

Surrounding the Museum buildings is historic Stoney Creek Village–listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Please be respectful of the privately-owned homes while walking along the roads and please watch for traffic.  Walking and driving tour maps are available for purchase in the Museum store.

Please enjoy this historic setting preserved just for you!