Former mental asylum up for sale

A sprawling 50-acre complex that once housed a mental asylum and is considered one of the most haunted places in Michigan is up for sale.

The Eloise Complex on Michigan Avenue in Westland is listed for $1.5 million — a price that includes an old fire station from the 1800s, a decommissioned power plant and two maintenance buildings, according to an online real estate listing for the property.

Eloise began as a poorhouse and farm in 1839. It eventually grew to a complex of 76 buildings, according to the listing, and at its peak covered 900 acres.

Over the years, the site housed many things, including the mental asylum, a tuberculosis sanatorium and county hospital. The complex was at one point the biggest of its kind, a city unto itself with a population of thousands.

Wayne County owns the property. It went up for sale last week, said listing broker Mike Deighan of O'Keefe LLC in Bloomfield Hills

The listing says the site offers a "phenomenal redevelopment opportunity," with about a half-mile of frontage on Michigan Avenue near Henry Ruff Road.

"I think you could do retail on the frontage of Michigan Avenue, and I think you could do multiple family, single family or senior housing on the back side," Deighan said.

A five-story, 150,000-square-foot structure known as the Kay Beard Building, or Building D, is in fair condition and the only occupied building on the site, Deighan said. It houses offices for the county's Head Start and senior services programs, but those tenants will vacate in the first quarter of next year.

There is also a parking lot for 100 vehicles.

Deighan said small pieces of the property that include the Wayne County Family Center and a building with the Wayne County Sheriff's Office road patrol division and a county clerk satellite office are not part of the sale.

Wayne County spokesman Ryan Bridges said the county is attempting to monetize its unused assets. It costs just under $400,000 annually to maintain the property, he said.

Eloise once had barns, a greenhouse, cattle herds, a piggery, a cannery, its own post office and a tobacco field.

Buildings closed gradually; most were razed. Psychiatric patients were removed in 1979. Wayne County General Hospital closed in 1984.

In 1995, Ford purchased 219 acres of the property south of Michigan Avenue. Today, another part of Eloise includes a strip mall.

Eloise is known in Michigan folklore as much for its spirits as its colorful history. In 2014, a psychological thriller titled "Eloise" was filmed at the site.

The website HauntedUSA.org says of the complex:

"Explorers were rumored to have discovered jars of human body parts, documents outlining strange medical procedures, and creepy snapshots of patients in the abandoned buildings that were torn down in the 1980s. More recently, a spectral woman wearing white has been rumored to be seen in the upper floors and on the roof of the old D building ... Some have reported hearing strange moans, screams, and roars on the old grounds."

Contact staff writer Ann Zaniewski: 313-222-6594 or azaniewski@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @AnnZaniewski.