http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/headlands_landmark.mp3
IPR News Radio continues its Landmark series with a visit to the Beach House at The Headlands, west of Mackinaw City.
Back in the late 1950's a Chicago businessman bought the land with the intent to build a family retreat. He only built a beach house.
But historic preservationists say would it likely qualify for the national register.
The building is in need of serious repairs, though, and the county might tear it down.
Flour Drop
Roger McCormick was grandson to Cyrus McCormick, who is credited with developing a mechanical way to harvest grain known as the McCormick reaper.
The story goes Roger fell in love with a wild piece of land just around a bend from where the Mackinac Bridge was being built. So he took to the air to mark the boundaries of the property he wanted.
"He decided he wanted to be in this area and rented a helicopter and came out here with some bags of flour and dropped bags of flour on a chunk of property and asked his property acquisition people to acquire that for him," relates Rick Neumann.
Neumann is an architect from Petoskey. He's made a study of what's called the Beach House today. But when it was built in 1964 it was called the pool house. There was an outdoor pool surrounded by an eight foot tall wall of tannish pink brick.
The house has two wings of the same brick that rise forty feet into the air and face an expanse of Lake Michigan. And each wing is filled with glass panes that extend up for nearly two stories.
Design With Light
McCormick died young and never got to build the estate that he planned. But Neumann says the Beach House is significant in its own right.
It reminds him of something Yale architecture professor Vincent Scully once said. "Architects work not only in steel, brick, stone and wood but they also design with light. And this building with the large expanses of glass in it to me is a good representation of that," Neumann says.
The bold geometrical lines of the Beach House are typical of a modernist school of architecture that emerged in the U.S. right after the Second World War. Neumann says it represents what architectural historians have called the "brutalist" style.
"It didn't have a lot of bric-a-brac detail. It's stripped bare to just the basic geometric forms. And so it has a kind of brutal or rugged statement."
The Park
The house is carved out from a rocky coastline and is surrounded by dense vegetation. The McCormick Family Foundation eventually sold the land to the County for a park.
"The building frankly is just kind of an aside to us," says Tom Bailey.
He's director of the Little Traverse Conservancy. The Conservancy helped to broker the deal to protect The Headlands in public ownership.
For a number of years now the County has used the Beach House for public meetings and rented it as a place for people to stay.
Bailey isn't concerned with the fate of the structure. For him, the big attraction is what the land itself offers. " For plants, for wildlife, for the night sky, for people really to get a sense of what the Straits area was like before European settlement."
Gathering Place
The Straits area was a gathering place for humans for hundreds if not thousands of years. It's where traders met, then it became a strategic outpost, and now it's a recreation hotspot.
The Headlands is recognized as one of a few dark sky parks in the world. And Emmet County is considering whether to keep the Beach House or tear it down. After nearly fifty years it needs extensive repairs.
At the same time, historians say the structure represents an era of innovation in design. With auto and furniture manufacturing thriving in the post war era, talented people were drawn to the state, says Brain Conway.
"With this pool of designers in the state, Michigan did really rise in the national scene as a design center. So examples from that period certainly are of note and importance to the state," Conway says.
He's the historic preservation officer for Michigan. His office is planning a major public exhibit called Michigan Modern at the Cranbrook Institute for next summer. And he thinks the Beach House at The Headlands is a perfect example of the architecture from that era.
"Having seen it, I think from an architectural point of view, yes it probably would be eligible for the national register of historic places," Conway says.
Fate of the Beach House
The Emmet County Board will decide the fate of the building.
For architect Rick Neumann of Petoskey the design and the spectacular location go hand-in-hand. He says if McCormick hadn't bought the property The Headlands likely would be divided up into a thousand single family cottages today.
Neumann thinks it would be too bad if the Beach House is torn down.
"As a taxpayer I can appreciate the county's approach to do what is most economical," he says. "But at the same time I think this building could be inspirational and be a symbol for the history of the property and the dark sky park that is being developed here."
Emmet County officials figure it would cost $1.5 million to renovate the structure. Only about 30 people can gather there now. They'd like a place that can hold a couple of hundred.