Volunteers in costume during Meadow Brook Hall’s Downton Days.

If you’ve been missing Lady Mary and the Dowager Countess—or, more pointedly, Carson, Mrs. Hughes, and the rest of the “downstairs crowd”— ever since Downton Abbey aired its last episode earlier this year, keep a stiff upper lip: Meadow Brook Hall will be hosting a series of events throughout February, calling the program Downton Days.

This is the popular program’s third year, and Rochester’s opulent Meadow Brook Hall—the historic former home of Matilda Dodge Wilson, widow of automotive pioneer John Dodge, and her second husband Alfred Wilson—seems as close to a British countryside castle as one can find in Michigan. Built in the 1920s, the Hall stood at the center of a 1,500-acre estate that also contained farm buildings, residences, and formal gardens.

“The idea (for Downton Days) came to us a few years ago, when someone made a comparison, saying Meadow Brook was Michigan’s own Downton Abbey,” said Shannon O’Berski, Meadow Brooks’ director of marketing and community relations. “It just seemed like a great opportunity to host events and bring people to Meadow Brook to learn about the house and the staff that had lived and worked here.” READ THE REST HERE