Lake House Dreaming

 This is a little sketch idea for a lake house for a site in northern Michigan. The vacation home incorporates natural materials, a plan that is very open to the outdoors, and an aesthetic borrowed equally from the Prairie style, the Great Camps of the Adirondacks, and cruise liners. I think the blend of these influences, plus the desire to encompass a no-frills 'up north' experience, lends the house a dignified elegance that makes it feel timeless and at home in its natural surroundings.

The house is situated on a sloping site that leads down to a lake (to the left of the sketch). This topographic change manifests itself in the spatial organization of the house: the 'anchoring' three story portion of the house steps down to the airy great room that juts out into the site with the help of a sweeping wraparound porch protected from the elements by an elegantly cantilevered roof. The inside-outside fireplace at the terminus of the great room provides a secondary 'anchor' to the composition.

The great room and its porch is conceived as the focal point of the life of the house. The two-story room is rather luxurious in size and boasts a continuous linkages to the outside through many French doors and ribbon windows. A narrow band of clerestory windows light the space from above. The porch cantilevers out from the great room toward the lake, providing ample space for outdoor entertainment, even in rainy weather. Personally, I rather like sitting out on the porch at our cottage when it is raining.

The three-story (including the partially-exposed basement) volume 'up the hill' includes the kitchen, dining room, and a bedroom with an en suite on the main floor. The upper floor includes three more bedrooms and two baths. The basement is mainly storage.

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I personally love looking at and designing cottages and vacation homes. They are meant to be flexible, recreational places, so they are often less fussy than a traditional home. I particularly enjoy the Adirondack camps of the late 19th Century and the Shingle style East Coast 'cottages' of that same era. Michigan, since it is a bit of a cross-breed between the planar Great Plains and the woodsy Northeast, is in a unique position when it comes to architectural heritage and influence. Hence, with this design, I felt comfortable borrowing elements from Frank Lloyd Wrights' Prairie Houses as well as from more Eastern elements such as the styles mentioned above.

I love the dunes. The western coast of Michigan is blessed with many stretches of these sandy heaps, not least of which is the shore of Big Sable Point near Ludington. Today, me and my parents took a little trip up to Ludington State Park (not more than an hour and a half drive) to enjoy the lake and the nice - though horrifically windy - weather. We parked and then walked about a mile and a half to the Big Sable Point Lighthouse, which we were able to climb for some nice 360 degree views over the lake and the dunes. Michigan in the fall, though often cold and windy, is my favorite time of year: there are no summer crowds, the leaves are colorful, and the light just seems brighter.

The Camp

Over the long holiday weekend my extended family gathered in Michigan's Upper Peninsula at a cabin that has been in the family for 38 years. It is a simple cabin with three rooms and a front and back porch. There is no electricity or indoor plumbing; water is gotten by means of an old red, iron hand pump that channels the water into the sink. The experience is rustic and uncluttered.

The cabin is situated in the midst of a vast forested swath of the central UP. The nearest town of any decent population is more than an hour's drive from our eighty acres. When you're at the Camp (as we call it), you're at home in the wild. Four wooden walls separate you from the raw power of nature. It is one of my favorite places in the world. It is to me what Walden Pond was to Thoreau. I am extremely blessed to have access to such a beautiful and restorative place.

Out in front of the cabin is a small lake of perhaps fifteen acres. It is ringed by marshy lowlands that vary in width from a few yards to several hundred yards. Beyond the marshes, birch-forested hills strewn with boulders arise and give shape to the lake's natural basin. Our cabin is the only cabin on the lake. At night, stars like you've never seen fill the sky over the water. Sometimes the northern lights dance on the horizon. Wolves howl often.

I love the cabin itself. It suits its surroundings perfectly - it looks like it's always been there. The kitchen is clustered around the old wood-burning stove in one of the back corners. A big iron grate in the middle of the floor lets up heat from the furnace in the basement. Propane lamps hang from the ceiling and cast their soft light over the room at night. Wide picture windows face southeast, making for a dramatic sunlit awakening for whoever sleeps on the pull-out couch. The interior decor is an eclectic affair: numerous deer antlers and old forest-y prints mixed with 1950s paint-by-numbers and an imitation Salvador Dali painting I did my senior year of high school. Bumper stickers are affixed to the fridge (which we use as a cabinet, since there is no electricity to have it function as a fridge).

The fire pit out in front of the cabin is the true center of life at the Camp. One rock for every year of our ownership of the Camp encircles the fire. Two boulders that my dad excavated from the driveway sit there - one is usually a convenient place for sitting my grandpa's trusty old radio. I like that the radio is our only media up there. It makes things less complicated. You get news and entertainment without all of the sensory overload of TV or internet.

Up at the Camp I feel much more energized than I do in Muncie or Grand Rapids. I think it's because we spend most of our time outside. For a good two hours on Saturday I chopped down small trees in front of the cabin that had become overgrown. It's nice to do some physical work without the pressure of necessity or time constraint. I even enjoyed mowing the lawn. I went to bed exhausted every night.

Design for a Bunk-house

Many of my readers will know that my extended family owns a small cabin in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Purchased almost forty years ago by my grandfather and two great-uncles, it was originally intended to be strictly a hunting camp - as it sits on eighty acres of woodland. However, though it is still used for hunting during that season, nowadays the family enjoys going up there to really get away from it all and enjoy tearing around nature in dirtbikes and four-wheelers.

The current cabin is very small, with room for perhaps eight to sleep uncomfortably (there are only two tiny bedrooms). The design pictured at left is for a theoretical bunk-house to be added to the property to help remedy the lack of accommodations. The style is based on the current cabin, and on a larger tradition of wilderness and camp architecture (thinking specifically of the great Adirondack camps of the Nineteenth Century). In plan, the house contains a central living/sitting volume that divides the structure into symmetrical halves, each containing two ground-floor bedrooms, with sleeping lofts above. A wood stove at the center of the main room would provide the minimal heat needed during the peak periods of occupation (Memorial Day and Labor Day). Since running water and electricity are unavailable in the area, this cabin is built without any kitchen or bath fixtures. The existing cabin has cooking facilities, and an outhouse is nearby for when nature calls.

This was a fun little cabin to design. Sometimes the most uncomplicated things can be the most rewarding ideas when they get put on paper. Such a cabin would be easy to build, serve its purpose well, and blend in with the current, minimal, built context. Perhaps, with a source of funding yet to be determined, it could be built someday (rather cheaply, I would wager).  

Up North

I have spoken before about the wonderful Michigan tradition of heading "up north" in reference both to my family and to the general restorative feeling that walking in the woods has on a person. This past weekend some friends and I stayed at one of my friend's cottage on White Lake (a large lake near the western shore of Lake Michigan). This was the second time that I have stayed at a cottage that was not connected to my family in some way. However, with the experiences I have had all over "up north" it seems that the need to get back to nature can be accommodated in many diverse instances.

Up north is roughly defined in Michigan geography as the vast northern swath of the state above the cities of Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Flint (generally speaking). This region is the true heart of "Pure Michigan", the states ubiquitous tourism motto. Sure the cities of the southern half of the peninsula have some charms (I dare to include Detroit), but it is in the mild wilderness of the north that the true Michigan experience can be found.

Of course, the point of this post is that "up north" is not confined by geography, but merely accommodated by it. Going up north is so much more the journey to a state of mind. Up north is universally a place where gadgets are abandoned (no doubt helped in part by the lack of reliable cell phone service) and time slows down to a more human pace. Each family that makes journeys to their own special part of up north has certain traditions and activities that make the experience one of happy familial bonding. In my own family, we often simply spend time sitting on the boat in the middle of the lake, while at night the predetermined entertainment is often a good tournament of euchre (jokingly referred to as my family's primary religious affiliation). Interspersed are campfires, grandpa's stories, rides in the golf cart, and just being childlike in the woods.

There is something to be said of times like these; they help restore the soul. They help us live more deeply. When we strip away the day-to-day and throw out the ipods, ipads, and computers, and spend a few days in the company of friends, enveloped by nature, we emerge refreshed - and quite happier. Indeed, as I stated before, the location is not the key. The cottage we stayed at last weekend was small, humble, and uncluttered, yet it was the site of some of the best times I've had all summer. Heck, just sitting on the sun porch reading before dinner was ready was a nice moment.

So I guess this is part philosophy, part travel literature, but my point is that our lives are moving more quickly and we are losing real contact with both man and nature. Taking a trip up north, whether physically or just simplifying life for awhile, can have profound benefits and provide many happy memories for years to come.