Traverse, Northern Michigan’s – July 2019

Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine | JUL ’19 67

After building one home on Park Avenue, across the road

from the shoreline he walked as a youth, Young was ready

for what David Miles, curator of the Charlevoix Historic

Society, refers to as an “explosion of creativity.” It would be

a development called Boulder Park and it would be located a

half-mile west of the Park Avenue homes. The crown jewel

would be, and still is, a home called Boulder Manor.

“Townspeople were saying, ‘What in God’s name is that

man up to out there,’” says Miles. Boulder Manor’s walls

and chimney are clad in fabulously large boulders that Miles

explains as looking like they landed together in a kind of

“reverse Big Bang Theory.”

Creativity aside, the structure is a feat of construction,

especially given hydraulic front loaders weren’t even invented

yet. “I was driving by just the other day and noticed some

of those boulders,” says Bob Drost, a Charlevoix landscaper

who regularly deals in moving massive rocks. “One of them

must have weighed two tons plus. It blows my mind. I would

give a lot to have spent a day with him before he died.”

The buildings are a gift indeed to this beautiful little town.

Young’s pièce de résistance, the stone and turreted Stafford’s

Weathervane Restaurant (finished in 1954) sprawls regally on

the north shore of the channel that connects Round Lake

with Lake Michigan. The drawbridge that opens to let boats

pass from lake to lake sits in its shadow. Young knew how

to play to the dramatic.

As the decades passed, Young and his work became Char-

levoix institutions. Until his death in 1975 he kept an office

in the Weathervane. He walked there almost daily—leaning

on a walking stick for support, a beret on his head, a scarf

around his neck and his poodle, Pamper, on a leash.

While Charlevoix has always appreciated Young and his

work, for decades after his death the buildings got little

national or even regional recognition. There were reasons

for that—Young was self-taught (he dropped out of University

of Michigan’s school of architecture after a year because it

was too stifling), most of his clients weren’t terribly wealthy

and he worked exclusively in small-town Charlevoix, all

factors that made it difficult for him to build a wide-ranging

reputation. In addition, many of his homes were defined by

low ceilings, almost nonexistent kitchens (cooking wasn’t

a priority to Young) and small rooms. It took people who

really understood Young’s vision for buildings that hugged

their landscape to buy in.

VIDEO TOUR: Take a drive past the Hobbit

houses with us. MyNorth.com/EarlYoung

CLOCKWISE TOP LEFT: THE MUSHROOM

HOUSE // WINDOW OF THE PANAMA HOUSE

// KITCHEN OF THE MUSHROOM HOUSE //

WINDOW OF THE SUCHER HOUSE //LIVING

ROOM AND FIREPLACE OF THE MUSHROOM

HOUSE.

BELOW: THE SUCHER HOUSE.