Farmington Hills' green heart (and the festival next door)

For one of Oakland County’s biggest cities, Farmington Hills hides its centerpiece well: Heritage Park, roughly 200 acres of woods, meadows, and ravines folded behind Farmington Road, with a nature center, miles of hiking and ski trails, a splash pad, and the sledding hills every local kid measures winter by. The park wraps the historic Spicer House, and its trails connect a city of subdivisions back to the rolling, wooded terrain that gave “the Hills” their name.

The civic heartbeat is just down the road in old Farmington, the small city tucked inside Farmington Hills’ borders, where the Greater Farmington Founders Festival has filled the Grand River downtown with carnival rides, concerts, and street vendors each summer for generations. Between the park, the festival, a walkable historic downtown, and some of the metro area’s most diverse and decorated schools, the Farmingtons offer the rare suburban package where the green space and the gathering places came first.