Making Places

My stories take place in Paris, Michigan. There is a Paris here, but it is not quite the thriving metropolis I envision. The real Paris is a quiet crossroads north of Big Rapids renowned for its Victorian reproduction refrigerators.

My Paris is a cultural wannabe.

The principal characters include the dela Mothes, descendants of Antoine dela Mothe Cadillac, the nominal founder of Detroit. Cadillac was French, as was the original Detroit settlement, so naturally the dela Mothes look to France for their identity.

The design of my Paris follows the original in detail, if not layout. There is a half-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower. There is a park called Elysian Field’s (Champs Elysees). Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine looks vaguely like the Notre Dame Cathedral. Many of the buildings in the city center are Second Empire style. The local art school is called Sorbonne. It’s buildings are all Bauhaus.

If it had a Disneyland quality the effect might work. Instead, it looks like a shabby back road campground. Perhaps the massive dirty factory complex in the background shatters the fantasy.

Like many nouveau riche in America, the dela Mothes wear their wealth on their sleeves, as if no one would notice, otherwise. They live in enormous chateaus. They spend lavishly on public works. They dress in flashy expensive clothes.

The family estates are not too far beyond the norm for automotive pioneers. Meadowbrook Hall, a Tudor Revival mansion is among the ten largest homes in the country. Biltmore, the Vanderbilt home in Ashville, NC is styled after a French chateau. It clocks in at 185,000 square feet.

Not too shabby.

The details of these palaces are easily imagined. The serpentine brick walls surrounding the estates can be found at Greenfield Village and the Ford Proving Ground. Gothic arches and Palladian windows can be found in any architecture coffee table book. The paintings and furnishings, like the Bösendorfer piano, marble statues and Klimt artwork would be fixtures in any wealthy home.

Even the industrial spaces are familiar. The GM Tech Center, designed by Eero Saarinen, resembles a glass and chrome college campus. Switching from a rectangular plan to a circular one designed by Mies Vander Rohe was only a small imaginative leap.

I can see these places in my mind, because I’ve been in similar places. By altering a few details, I have something fresh and vivid enough that my readers can easily make the leap with me.