I live and work in Milford, so perhaps this is just natural for me. That wasn’t always true. We moved here in 1999, after my son had first moved here and we came out several times to visit. We fell in love wiith the Village and decided that it would be our last move destination. We found a historic home (1885) that we absolutely love and have been happy ever since. I got into real estate in 2002 and have been specializing in the Milford area right from the beginning, with an emphasis on the fime old historic homes in the area. That great old home stock is one reason that so many people love Milford.

Locally, we get buyers all the time from Commerce, West Bloomfield, Farmington Hills, Northville, Novi, Bloomfield Hills and even from Birmingham. When we listen to what these buyers are seeking and why they find Milford to be so interesting a pattern emerges. Whether they ever say the name or not, they are all looking for  their version of Mayberry RFD—a place where Aunt Bea might bring over a welcoming plate of cookies and where Opie might be waiting to play with their children. If they’re older, maybe a place where they can visit Floyd’s Barber Shop or just stroll downtown for a meal or to shop.

Mayberry was the idealized American dream town and Milford is about as close to realizing that dream as one can get locally these days. Let’s look at the facts: Milford’s downtown is relatively small (just 2-3 blocks), but you can still find a women’s and a men’s clothing store, a shoe store, several restaurants (more on that below) and coffee/tea houses, a florist, a few knick-knack  shops, a few toy stores, a barber shop, several jewelry stores, two furniture/home decorating stores, a golf store, lots of services, the localnewspaper office, and much more. The bottom-line is that it is still a useful downtown and not just a set of tourist-oriented shops. That’s important. We even have a local butcher

shop  just off Main Street.  Take the photo tour of downtown to get a feel for the Village.  As it evolves it is still staying useful.  We just recently added a new show store and a golf store.e also have the modern things that enhance the living environment – a great, new Public Library and a new YMCA.  We have three shopping areas arrayed around food stores – one on the south side, one on the north side and one on the eastern entrance to the Village.  Many residents walk to these stores and shopping areas, too. nother thing that we have plenty of is park space for families. The main park is Central Park, right on the banks fo the Huron river. This park houses the Milford War Memorial and the Village’s play structure for children. Off the north side of the park is the restored Ford Power Plant that was originally built to generate electricity for one of the Village Industries plants that Henry Ford built – this one produced carberators for Ford cars.  There are a couple hidden little parks in the Village too, such as Centenial Park over by the Village Offices, at the end of E. Huron St. And, of course, there is the historic Village cemetary – in this case Oak Hill Cemetary – that is the final resting place to many of the pioneer families that first settled Milford, such as the Ruggles brothers, our first settlers.

Next let’s look at the local culture. The best way to describe it overall is Family Oriented.  One of the things that we who live here all like are the parades. We have three major parades a year—The Memorial Day Parade, the 4th of July Parade and the Christmas Parade (held on the first Saturday after Thanksgiving each year). These are “shut down Main Street” parades, with marching bands and floats and flyovers and marching politicians and candy being tossed to the kids. They are great fun and draw considerable crowds from the surrounding area.  Then there are the 3-5 minor parades/events that also shut down main street—the Homecoming Parade for Milford High, the Little League Parade where all the local  Little League teams in full uniform march down Main Street to kick off the season,

the Shop rock and Roll event that features 10-15 bouncing rides for the kids while the downtown shops stage sidewalk sales, the Halloween CostumeParade where the kids dress in their costumes and parade up and down Main St, while the local merchants hand out candy. And of course there is Milford Memories—the biggest street event of the year. You just don’t get all of this anywhere else in this part of Michigan.

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