Sand dunes immediately surrounded the Lake Michigan Beach House when it was first built back in 1935. These days almost a million visitors trample the shore every summer at the Ludington State Park Beach and that traffic has flattened the immediate dunes to sugar sand beach.
But a piece of that 1930s landscape has been restored, the beach house itself has stepped back in time after a painstaking restoration that began back in 2008.
Winds Wearing Away History
It was a remodel desperately needed. For decades, as winds off Lake Michigan kicked up the dunes, they acted as a massive sand blaster.
“On the north side of the building a lot of the brick had been worn away, eaten away half of it. Some parts all the brick where the sand over the years had eaten away,” says Ludington State Park Interpreter Alan Wernette.
He says the sand was blasting away a piece of Ludington history that was even older than this beach house.
“The original bricks when this was built in the 1930s came from the Morton salt mill down in Ludington,” he says.
The 1930s was a time when you salvaged and re-used everything. The federal government’s Civilian Conservation Corps created work for young men. In Ludington they set out to build the state park, and, in it, this rather expansive, two-story beach house.
“Groups of men would go down and slowly tear down the mill,” Wernette explains. “As they tore down the mill they would save, scavenge as much as they could from it, bring them out here. And the brick work got used again.”
Careful Restoration
That original brick is now all gone, but what’s here is a pretty close replica. The details were carefully researched. They recreated the color, but also an unusual 1930s mortar job where cement between the bricks appears to be oozing out from the building.
“A lot of masons will tell you that a weeping mortar joint in the state of Michigan is not a good idea because weeping mortar joints actually hold moisture and allow water to get into any minute cranck in between and you get the freeze/thaw and it’ll break up,” Wernette says.
It’s a beautiful look, but it took some effort to find the right mortar and brick to recreate it in a way that also shored up the façade to better withstand the elements.
That attention to detail was recognized with a 2014 Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation earlier this month.
More Detail
Officials also carefully research the paint colors of the 1930s.
“It kind of matches the dunes, the sand, the way they painted it,” Wernette says.
Inside and out, the walls are no longer the grey/white colors of practicality from the 1960s when Wernette says the state came close to tearing this building down. Instead, hard-to-maintain windows facing Lake Michigan were boarded up at that time and walls were erected that divided the upstairs, and hid the original craftsmanship.
“When they first cut open the window areas again where they were all boarded up from the past, it was all the extra light coming here,” says Wernette of the remodel. “And when they took out the big walls that hid a lot of the beauty in the old woodwork in this place… it was just, like, in awe.”
Modern Amenities
There are some modern adjustments. There’s now a countertop and three-pronged outlets for people to use their laptops overlooking the water. There’s a lift for people who have trouble climbing stairs. New flowerbeds on the outside are built to look original, but they’re not. They’re designed to help shore up and protect the building’s aging foundation.
Something has changed with us beach-goers too. We’re no longer the visitors of the 30s and 40s. Back then you’d show up sporting your Sunday best.
“They had a counter here and you’d get a basket, and you would take your basket into the change quarters,” Wernette explains while standing in the lower level. “You would change into your bathing suit and bring all your clothes back in the basket for the attendant.
“They did that up until about the 50s. 1950s the culture started to change and … even up to today we come pretty much prepared to go to the beach right away. So change quarters are gone now, the bathrooms are bigger and we’ve opened up this area.”