Houses Archives - Page 25 of 28

The Old House Near Kalkaska

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Forgotten Places, Houses, Winter Wonderland .

I saw this old farmhouse while I was getting lost driving around Kalkaska. I often wonder about these old northern Michigan farmhouses and the difficulties of living and working in northern Michigan. It must have been a hard way to make a living, working on the hilly fields in the hot summer, and then fighting the cold in the winter all while being rather isolated from civilization. I wonder what they would have thought of all of us “tourists” that head up to the great white north to relax and enjoy Pure Michigan.

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The Inspiring Story of the Little Girl Raised in this Forgotten House

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in autumn, Forgotten Places, Houses .

Near Arcadia Michigan, is this old farmhouse hidden in the trees, in which a little girl named Harriet Quimby lived with her family. When she was a teenager, she moved with her parents to California where she grew up with a love of writing. She wrote seven screenplays directed by D.W. Griffith, and even acted in a few movies. She eventually moved to New York, and began writing a column for Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly. She would publish articles about her journeys and adventures for the magazine, which lead her to an airshow, where she fell in love with aviation, and became the first woman to receive a pilot’s license on August 1st, 1911.

Harriet Quimby in her Purple Flying Suit : Wikipedia

She became a world famous pilot, traveling the world flying in her vibrant colored purple flying suit, and paved the way for female pilots like Amelia Earhart. She was the first woman pilot to fly across the English Channel in 1912, but received little press coverage, because the Titanic had sunk the day before her crossing.

on July 1st she was Tragically killed in a plane crash when her plane pitched upward and she, and her passenger, were thrown from the plane and fell to their deaths. Strangely the plane glided back down, and her accident still remains a mystery as to what happened.

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The Garfield Inn at Port Austin

Posted on October 16, 2016 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Houses, Thumb .

Last time I was in Port Austin, the Garfield Inn was for sale, and the paint was peeling off. It looks as though it has new owners, and they have fixed up the grand old home. I am happy to see someone is taking care of this historic place.

the Historical Marker sign out front reads:

A native of New York, contractor Charles G. Learned helped build New York City’s water-works system and the Erie Canal. Around 1837 Learned and his brother-in-law purchased several thousand acres of pine land in Michigan’s Thumb area. Two years later, Learned and his wife, Maria Raymond, came to Port Austin and bought a house and three acres at this site. Learned’s cutover pine land became a 2,000-acre farm where he prospered as an agriculturalist and dairy farmer. With profits from his lumbering and farming enterprises Learned enlarged and updated this house in the French Second Empire style. In the 1860s Ohio congressman, later president, James A. Garfield, a family friend, was a frequent guest here. From 1931 to 1979 the house served as the Mayes Inn and Tower Hotel.

There were rumors that President Garfield was smitten for Charles Learned’s wife Maria and that president requested that he travel to Port Austin to see her after being shot, but he was not permitted to travel.

You can read more about this place and many other locations around Michigan in my books available HERE

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Lost In The Thumb

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Barns and Farms, Forgotten Places, Houses .

I took a trip out to the tip of the thumb today, and I saw this old farmhouse near Carsonville along the way. I had to stop and get a pic of it. I took M25 along the lake, and it sure is a beautiful drive, I am looking forward to sharing some more pics and stories from my trip in the near future.

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The Grand Old Home at Finlandia

Posted on October 7, 2016 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Houses, upper peninsula .

The Lieblein House was built in 1895 in the city of Hancock by William Washburn, who owned a local Hancock clothing store. In about 1905, Washburn sold the house to Edward Lieblein, a wholesale grocer who owned stores in Hancock and Calumet. The house remained in the Lieblein family until 1979, when Edward Lieblein Jr. sold it to Suomi College (now Finlandia University). The college renamed it the “Vaino & Judith Hoover Center” after the patrons Vaino and Judith Hoover who funded the purchase. As of 2009, the building houses the offices of the President, Institutional Advancement, Alumni Relations, and Communications. The house was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1979 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

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I Think I Have A Serious Problem

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Houses .

I was going thru some of my old photos, and I cam across this pic of this old house, or shack, or whatever it was, but I don’t remember even taking this photo. It was in with my photos from Cross Village and Levering, so it must be somewhere around there. I take a lot of photos, and I mean a lot, I can usually remember taking all the photos I have crated, but It’s rather strange that I don’t remember this one, maybe the aliens did it.

P.S. thank you for reading my posts and following me on my journeys around Michigan, even if I am loosing my mind.

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The Michigan School For the Deaf – Michigan Historical Marker

Posted on September 3, 2016 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Houses, Michigan Historical Markers .

The Superintendent’s Cottage, completed in 1890, is the oldest building on the campus of the Michigan School for the Deaf. With the exception of the masonry work, the cottage was built almost entirely by male students. In addition, students made the furniture for the house in the school’s shops. The building reflects the craftsmanship of the boys who studied under instructors Edwin Barton and James Foss. Student labor saved the state money while preparing the boys for future employment. Construction of the cottage began during an 1880s diphtheria epidemic when faculty housing was reorganized to make room hospital space. Beginning with Francis Clarke and his family, who lived in the house from 1892 to 1913, every superintendent has resided in the cottage.

In 1848 the Michigan legislature established the Michigan Asylum for Educating the Deaf and Dumb and the blind. Flint was selected as the site for the new institution. The first student arrived on February 6, 1854. After the School for the Blind opened in Lansing in 1880, the Flint facility began serving only deaf children. The curriculum, which combined academics and practical training. emphasized “market gardening and general farming.” Boys studied carpentry, printing, tailoring and farming, while girls learned the sciences of cooking, sewing, darning and patching. The schools mission was to educate deaf children so that they “may earn a living … may have culture enough to enjoy that living … (and) may be fitted for citizenship.

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The Old Farmhouse Near Holly

Posted on August 29, 2016 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Forgotten Places, Houses .

Traveling the back roads near Holly, I found this old farmhouse. It has watched that pine tree grow up over the years, and now the pine trees is still standing there, watching over the old house. Like most of the old houses I photograph, I don’t know anything about it, but I had to stop and take a photo.

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The Sad Story of the Cat Lady’s House in Saginaw

Posted on August 17, 2016 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Houses .

As some of you know, I am from Saginaw, and have lived here my whole life (I even do a website about Saginaw HERE). Traveling around Michigan, I see so many beautiful old abandoned houses in other towns around the state. Saginaw has it’s own historic abandoned mansion near downtown that is well known by the people of Saginaw as the “Cat Lady’s House” because the most recent owner was Rosemary DeGesero, and she would walk her pet leopard Chichu on a chain around Saginaw.

The House was originally built in the late 1870’s by lumber baron Charles Lee, who had a sawmill near the house along the Saginaw River. In 1911, after Charles Duryea moved to Saginaw, he used one of Lee’s sawmill buildings near the house to build what he called a “Motor Buggy. After Lee’s death, the house was purchased by Dr Michael D. Ryan, and he became the first resident physician at St Mary’s Hospital in Saginaw. While working for St Mary’s, he would walk to lumber camps and sell the hospital’s $5 insurance plans that would provide medical treatment for one year. Dr Ryan was one of the last “ horse and buggy” doctors traveling to outlying lumber camps in the Saginaw Valley. During the great fire of 1893 Dr. Ryan joined in the bucket brigade on the roof of St Mary’s Hospital dousing embers from the fire, saving the hospital from the treacherous flames.

Dr Ryan’s daughter, Rosemary married Roy DeGesero and they lived in the house raising their family in the same house she grew up in. When the Saginaw Daily News building was demolished in 1960 some of the terracotta lions were given to her, and prominently displayed on the front porch. Rosemary was and eccentric and interesting person, she loved the theater and often helped out at Pit and Balcony. She was known for her love of cats and had several of them and was known by those who did not know her name as “the cat lady”.

Sadly Rosemary died in 2012, a few years after moving to New Jersey to live with her daughter. The house went up for sale at that time and the City of Saginaw purchased the property ,and is the current owner. Unfortunately they did absolutely no maintenance to the house, and after several years of neglect the city has decided to demolish the home.

UPDATE: The house is currently for sale by the City of Saginaw. if no one purchases it by the end of October with a plan to restore it then it will be demolished. if you are interested in purchasing the historic home click HERE for info

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Mackinac Island and the File Folder Magnate

Posted on July 25, 2016 by Mike Sonnenberg Posted in Houses .

Edgecliff Cottage on the western bluff of Mackinac Island

About 20 years ago I visited Mackinac Island with my wife and I remember looking at a beautiful cottage and on a sign out front it read,” Home of the Inventor of the Manila Folder”
for some reason that always stuck with me, The Folder seems like such a simple thing but I guess someone had to be the first to fold a piece of cardboard and stick a paper in it. Kinda like some caveman had to be the first to invent the wheel. The thing that stuck with me is not only did this person invent the file folder but they bought a house on Mackinac Island too, it must have had a pretty good life from a simple invention.

A few months ago I was on the Island and we went over to the cottages on the other side of the Grand Hotel, and I could not find the sign that had been etched into my memory. I took a bunch of Photos, and hoped I got a pic that I needed and set out to find out what happened to the folder guy.

I found a book called ” View From the Veranda” by Phil Porter and found the name of William A. Amberg. so off to see my know it all friend Google and I found THIS article about William Amburg and how he was the inventor of a file folder system and with his great fortune he and his wife, Sarah Agnes Ward, purchased the West Bluff’s Westover cottage on Mackinac Island which they remodeled in 1892, and renamed it Edgecliff Cottage.

William was king of the file folders for a few years but then his patent was challenged and the judge deemed it “intellectual Property” but he must have still made out pretty well on his folders to have such a beautiful place on Mackinac Island.

I always think of that house every time I am sticking papers into a manila folder and if you have read this something tells me you will too.

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